RIGHT HAND MAN

Pablo Escobar’s Top Hitman ‘Popeye’ Dies From Cancer

Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, 57, died Thursday after a battle with esophageal cancer in Colombia, according to local reports.

Pablo Escobar’s top hitman, Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, died Thursday in Colombia after a battle with esophageal cancer, according to local media reports. Velásquez, whose nickname was Popeye, died at the National Cancer Institute in Bogotá at the age of 57, the Colombian outlet La FM reported, after being previously hospitalized on New Year’s Eve. The former Colombian hitman previously confessed to killing 300 people but was re-imprisoned in May 2018 after continuing to do the Medellín cartel’s bidding, the outlet said. Velásquez also wrote a 2005 book, Surviving Pablo Escobar: “Popeye” The Hitman 23 Years and 3 Months in Prison, about his time working with the drug kingpin who led the Medellín cartel and died in 1993.