NOWHERE TO HIDE

Colombia Cooks Up $3.5M Plan to Get Rid of Pablo Escobar’s Cocaine Hippos

Four hippos escaped from the drug lord’s estate. Now there are 130.

Officials in Colombia have decided to crack down on Pablo Escobar’s hippopotamuses in a plan to send at least half of the animals to sanctuaries overseas. The legendary drug lord originally brought a few hippos from Africa to his country estate in Colombia in the late 1980s. But after four escaped from the property following Escobar’s death in 1993, a wild population of the animals has exploded to an estimated 130—the biggest outside of Africa. Reports of hippo attacks have increased in Colombia and the government declared them an invasive species last year. Environmental authorities now hope to address the problem by capturing 70 of the wild hippos and sending them to India and Mexico. “The whole operation should cost around $3.5 million,” said Ernesto Zazueta, the owner of the Ostok Sanctuary in northern Mexico, which is set to receive 10 hippos.