The Man Who Brought Down Pablo Escobar
The Colombian drug lord was killed and his cartel destroyed. But as the colonel who pursued Escobar can attest, the war goes on and innocents keep dying.
Getty / Simon & Schuster Publicity
In April 1990, at the height of his fight against Pablo Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel, Colonel Hugo Martinez was standing in the middle of his family’s apartment, which had just been bombed, when he heard a sudden knock at the door. Martínez was in charge of the Search Bloc, the special Colombian police force organized to bring down Escobar. The knock was strange, Martínez knew, because no one but his family was supposed to know that he was actually there.
Arming himself, Martínez opened the door to discover a former police officer standing before him. The man had a strained look on his face. “I’ve come to you obligated,” the officer said glumly. He then got quickly to the point: “If you’ll let us know about your operations in advance, then 6 million dollars will be deposited into any account of your choosing.”
“Who,” the colonel asked quietly, “sent you here?”
