Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw

by Mark Bowden

  The attacks by Los Pepes further demonstrate their resolve to violently retaliate against Escobar each and every time Escobar commits a terrorist attack against the GOC and/or the innocent citizens of Colombia. Although the actions are not condoned nor approved by the CNP nor the BCO [Bogotá country office, the U.S. embassy] they may persuade Escobar to curb such behavior for fear of losing members of his own family. Too, these types of attacks will seriously cut into those assets owned by Escobar and his associates.

  No one in Washington was watching too closely. With every change of administration in Washington there came a window of opportunity for the covert ops community. It took President Clinton weeks to fill hundreds of staff positions, and it took the new appointees months to fully learn their jobs. Career military officers and bureaucrats were aware of this interruption in oversight and had been known to take advantage of it. So it might have been no coincidence that Los Pepes went public just days after Clinton moved into the White House.

  After the bodies of Parra and his son were discovered, President Gaviria was moved to publicly denounce the vigilantes. He offered a $1.4 million reward for information leading to the arrest of its members. The announcement was promptly followed by a communiqué from the group, announcing that they were disbanding, having "made a contribution" to the effort against Pablo.

  During the previous fall, Rodolpho Ospina, the DEA's SZE-92-0053, had listed six key members of Pablo's organization who needed to be taken out, one way or another. By summer three had surrendered and were in prison—Roberto Escobar, José Posada (whose replacement, Carlos Ossa, had been killed), and Carlos Alzate—and one, Mario Castaño, was dead. Of the five lawyers Ospina had named, all were either dead or had publicly resigned. And despite Los Pepes's announced disbanding, the killings continued. There were twenty more murders of Pablo's associates over the next three months, including his brother-in-law Carlos Henao and his cousin Gonzalo Marin. A nephew was kidnapped and never found.

  By the end of June many of Pablo's relatives had fled the country or were trying to. The United States used all its influence to deny them safe havens. In early July the president of neighboring Peru announced that his country would not allow Pablo's relatives to enter, even as tourists. Meanwhile, Pablo's brother Argemiro and his son, as well as his sister Luz Maria and her husband and three children, were discovered in Costa Rica, where they were officially deported and flown back to Medellín. When Nicholas Escobar, a nephew, and his family were traced to Chile, the embassy prevailed on the government there to evict them. They appealed through Chile's courts, which bought them a few weeks. The effort to expel Nicholas, who was the son of Pablo's incarcerated brother Roberto, spilled into the Colombian press, and the embassy found itself criticized for "harassing" Colombian citizens. After losing their appeals in Chile, Nicholas and his family flew to Frankfurt, Germany, where, to the consternation of U.S. officials, the government refused to cooperate with continued tracking and electronic surveillance. Few other relatives slipped the net. In mid-July, Pablo's wife, Maria Victoria, filed a legal petition demanding that the Colombian government allow her children to leave the country. It was denied.

  Pablo made another offer to surrender in March, just before the Search Bloc killed Mario Castaño, "El Chopo," the man who had succeeded Tyson Muñoz as chief of all the cartel's sicarios. The new surrender offer was delivered to the Roman Catholic bishop of the city of Bucaramanga. All Pablo asked now was that his family be given government protection, that he be given a private cell with his own kitchen (to prepare his own food in order to prevent poisoning), and permission to phone his family three times a week. President Gaviria reiterated the government's refusal to accept any conditions for Pablo's surrender, but Attorney General de Greiff sounded a dissenting view.

  "I do not see any difficulty in abiding by these requests, not as a concession but as a solution."

  De Greiff was increasingly at odds with the president. The pipe-smoking prosecutor believed he might be able to orchestrate an end to the country's narco plague on his own. Los Pepes, whom he had helped create through the amnesty program, were the stick. His ability to provide protection and legal forgiveness was the carrot. As the search for Pablo degenerated into a killing mission, de Greiff used his influence to push for Pablo's capture or surrender, not death. He became the good cop to Colonel Martinez's bad cop. His office assumed responsibility for protecting the drug boss's immediate family and offering bodyguards (paid for and fed by the Escobars) for the apartment building where they lived in Medellín. And he began to push, at least publicly, for the investigation and prosecution of Los Pepes.

  By early August the new Clinton administration overseers had noticed how neatly the dirty work of Los Pepes dovetailed with the U.S. mission, and representatives from the Justice Department and the Pentagon made trips to Bogotá seeking answers. Busby was asked directly about the death squad in August, when Brian Sheridan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for drug enforcement policy and support, visited Bogotá. The ambassador told Sheridan that there was no reason for concern and no evidence linking the group to Delta, Centra Spike, the Search Bloc, or the Colombian government.

  But there were plenty of reasons for concern. The DEA had reported since the first appearance of Los Pepes that "[evidence] suggested that the police were cooperating with the group at some level, including sharing information," according to a memo written by Agent Murphy. High-level DEA officials knew that their source Rudolpho Ospina had helped form the group, and they knew of its connection to the Search Bloc because Ospina had told them about it. The informant's account of how and by whom Los Pepes was formed was outlined in great detail in a secret memo to Joe Toft, written more than a month before Sheridan's visit by Gregory Passic, DEA chief of financial investigations. Identifying Ospina only by his DEA source code, SZE-92-0053, Passic related Ospina's account of meeting with two officers in Colonel Martinez's Search Bloc (Majors Gonzales and Rieno [Martinez's chief operations officer, who subsequently drowned]) in the months after Pablo's escape. "SZE did in fact introduce remnants of the Moncada and Galeano trafficking groups to the PNC in Medellín who agreed to assist in locating Escobar," Passic wrote. "SZE states that some of the survivors of the Galeano/Moncada families had evolved into Los Pepes. Because he had introduced some of these people to the Policía Nacional de Colombia (PNC) last year [before Los Pepes went public] that connection with him exists. He described Los Pepes as Fidel Castaño, Carlos Castaño, Mireya Galeano, Raphael Galeano, Freddy Paredes, and Eugenio Ramirez, with the Cali cartel being financial backers. He is unaware of how involved the Medellín PNC group [the Search Bloc] is in the actions of Los Pepes, but states there is definitely a Cali, PNC, Pepes alliance of shared information on Escobar and his associates."

  Busby hadn't seen this information, but he had seen enough to express his own concerns at length in a secret cable entitled "Unraveling the Pepes Tangled Web," dated August 1, just days before the meeting with Sheridan. The ambassador referred to himself throughout in the third person:

  The GOC [Government of Colombia] has long been worried that police officials may have been cooperating with Los Pepes, and that the attorney general, Gustavo de Greiff, has now told Ambassador Busby that he has new, "very good" evidence linking key members of the police task force in Medellín charged with capturing Pablo Escobar to criminal activities and human rights abuses committed by Los Pepes. Our own reporting since early February has also suggested that the police were cooperating with the group at some level, including sharing information.

  The cable was sent to the State Department, rather than the Pentagon, and carried instructions that it not be shared with other agencies. Sheridan would not see it until months later. In it, Busby discussed the circumstantial links between the Search Bloc and Los Pepes. The ambassador noted that he had met with President Gaviria on April 13 to "express his strongest reservations about the group." The ambassador requested that all police contact with Fidel Casta�
�o cease, and he was assured that it would. The cable went on to note that when President Gaviria decided to crack down on Los Pepes, he had summoned a top police commander and told him to "pass the word." Busby noted:

  Gaviria's effort to send such an important message to Los Pepes via one of his key police commanders, however, indicated that the president believed police officials were in contact with Los Pepes.

  The message clearly got through. The day after Gaviria sent it was the day Los Pepes announced they were disbanding. But the death squad continued its savage work, and evidence of a link to Colonel Martinez and the Search Bloc mounted. Busby wrote:

  On July 29, [Attorney] General de Greiff told the ambassador that the Fiscalia [attorney general's office] had enough evidence to issue warrants against the Medellín task force commander, Colonel Hugo Martinez, a "major," and four or five lower ranking police officials. The charges include accepting bribes, trafficking, and a series of human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and very possibly murder. According to De Greiff, he had "very good" witnesses…. De Greiff states that while some in the government had long assumed that Los Pepes may have been formed with the tacit support of the police in Medellín, and that the Bloque de Búsqueda [Search Bloc] was cooperating with the group on information sharing, "they went too far." He recalled that after early "harmless" attacks on fincas and apartments, in March the Pepes began targeting killing specific associates of Escobar. At this point, according to de Greiff, police officials were probably already too deeply involved with Los Pepes to withdraw. The witnesses' testimony indicates that not only were some members of the bloque and Los Pepes running joint operations, some of which resulted in kidnappings and possibly killings, but that the leadership of Los Pepes was calling the shots, rather than the police.

  Gaviria had intervened to prevent the arrest of Martinez and the others for fear "the police might not obey" the order, the cable explained. The president was concerned that a public scandal involving the colonel and the Search Bloc would effectively end the hunt for Pablo, conceding another huge victory to the drug boss. "It would be terrible, if after all the deaths and upheaval in the country, Escobar was victorious," the cable noted. Gaviria had promised, however, that charges would be brought against Martinez and the others eventually, "even if they are national heroes."

  Busby wrote that he had encouraged de Greiff to take immediate action against Martinez "if there was good evidence…. The investigation could then proceed at its own pace and the GOC would maintain the integrity of the unit." If "tainted officers" were kept in place, he wrote, "we would have no choice but to withdraw our support for the unit." The cable concluded:

  The ambassador's thinly veiled threats to withdraw our support unless immediate action was taken seem to have been heeded…. The Escobar sicarios have every reason to hate Martinez and the Bloque, and would not hesitate to lie if they thought they could gain revenge. We know Escobar has tried to link the Bloque and the Pepes in the past, and this could be part of that campaign. On the other hand, it is not hard to believe that policemen who have been hunting Escobar for years without success, who have seen the bloodshed firsthand, could not have been attracted to an "easy solution." Like the Pepes—with a push from Cali. The key points are for us to distance ourselves from the accused—by having them transferred—until the matter is clarified, and to continue to pursue the investigation.

  The ambassador didn't know it, but the Colombian government was getting different advice from the DEA. One day after Busby wrote his cable, DEA chief Toft and agent Bill Ledwith met with de Greiff. According to a DEA cable about that session, both Americans urged the attorney general to leave Martinez in place:

  Obviously, the impending implications and repercussions which would be experienced by the GOC should this information become public would almost certainly overwhelm the Gaviria administration. Also, this type of information could potentially elevate Escobar once again to the status of being a hero in Colombia…. As information, the BCO [Bogotá country office/the U.S. embassy] has enjoyed a long and successful working relationship with Colonel Martinez.

  The DEA men noted Colonel Martinez's long service in the effort against Pablo, how he had run the first war and had been called back from Spain to resume the effort. They told de Greiff of the hardships he had endured, the attempts on his life and his family. But mostly they argued that the colonel was getting results.

  Of interest is the fact that the Medellín cartel has been decimated and practically brought to its knees, all under the leadership of Colonel Martinez. To date, the BCO continues to support Colonel Martinez and his subordinates.

  That was apparently the message that got through. Martinez was not transferred, there were no charges against him or any members of his Search Bloc for involvement with Los Pepes nor would there ever be, and regardless of the concerns out lined in the memo, American support for the unit continued. Toft never told Busby about his meeting with the attorney general.

  In the summer of 1993, despite their pledge to disband, Los Pepes continued their bloody work, sometimes with evil panache. On July 14, a prize stallion owned by Roberto Escobar was stolen, its rider and trainer shot dead. The stud, named Terremoto, or Earthquake, was worth millions. The horse was found three weeks later, tied to a tree just south of Medellín, healthy but neutered.

  THE KILL

  October 1993–December 2, 1993

  1

  Colonel Martinez did not protest when he learned that his superiors in Bogotá were planning to replace him and had even picked his successor. He offered to step aside. As the first anniversary of Pablo Escobar's escape passed, there seemed to be better reasons to leave than to stay. Colonel José Perez, his supposed replacement, was a respected officer who had been working on a poppy-eradication program, which meant he probably had a comfortable relationship with the U.S. embassy, so maybe this time they would finally accept the colonel's resignation and he could get on with his life. He requested a transfer to Bogotá, citing stresses caused by his long separations from his family, who had been sent back to the capital for their own protection.

  Stress wasn't just an excuse. The hunt had created great strains in families, the colonel's perhaps most of all. His children had been forced out of school for long periods when they were in hiding, and he hardly saw them or his wife, who understandably blamed him for the problems in their marriage and with their children. As much as he wanted to finish the job, and as much as he felt that to step down would be an admission of failure, he was ready to do it gladly.

  But his request was again rejected. Perez never came, and the war went on. The colonel and his men were locked in a battle to the death with Pablo and his sicarios. One day when his men whooped in celebration after receiving word that a raid had killed yet another of Pablo's henchmen, one of Pablo's sicarios, recently captured, witnessed the celebration and was clearly saddened by the news. Ever polite, Martinez apologized for the display, and the captive told him, "No need to apologize; it is how we react when one of your men is killed."

  The toll of the hunt was terrible, but the police could afford to lose more men than Pablo could. By the summer of 1993 the once powerful Medellín cartel was in shambles. Pablo's old fincas stood empty, looted and burned. His old palatial estate, Nápoles, was now a police headquarters. Many of his former allies had abandoned him, offering to trade information about his whereabouts in return for government acquiescence in their own drug trafficking. But the man himself was still at large, moving from hideout to hideout, trying to hold together his crumbling empire, still setting off bombs, still sowing terror.

  There were those who refused to believe that with all his resources and support Martinez could not have found Pablo if he was really trying. An article in Semana polled officials in Bogotá for opinions about the Search Bloc's failure, and reported that "corruption" was believed to be the primary reason. The second reason most frequently cited was "inefficiency." Some of the colonel's top officer
s complained that the effort was ruining their careers.

  The Americans provided money, guidance, and information, and their support kept him in command, but Martinez knew that he still lacked their complete trust. One day late in the summer of 1993, Colonel Santos, the Delta commander at the Holguin base, and DEA agent Peña brought him a tape Centra Spike had recorded of a radio conversation between Pablo and his son. Martinez was excited. It was the first time he had actually heard Pablo's voice in more than a year. He wanted his men to study it, analyze it. The gringos allowed him to listen to the tape but refused to give him a copy.

  Martinez was furious. Peña and Santos were apologetic, but they had their orders.

  "Look, Colonel," Peña said. "I feel bad about it myself. You want to kick us all out of here, shit, kick us out. We'll leave right now."

  He secretly allowed the colonel to copy the tape, but Martinez stayed angry about the official snub. He had long since embraced American technology and had even allowed the covert American role in his command to grow. On July 14 he had met at the Holguin school with U.S. Army colonel John Alexander, down from Joint Special Operations Command headquarters at Fort Bragg, and agreed to allow Centra Spike to establish a ground-based listening post in the Medellín suburbs to supplement its Beechcraft flights. Martinez had also proved agreeable to Alexander's suggestion that Delta begin playing a more active role in "development of targets and subsequent operational planning." The ambassador himself had met with Martinez at the Holguin base on July 22, the first anniversary of Pablo's escape, to tour the facility and underscore America's continuing urgency and commitment.