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In 1989, a team of British mercenaries, led by Scotsman Peter McAleese, traveled to the heart of the world’s most dangerous man’s criminal empire with the aim of assassinating him.
Pablo Escobar was the leader of the Medelln Cartel in Colombia and one of the richest criminals in history.
It was the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of cocaine, then responsible for up to 80% of the global cocaine trade.
McAleese, a former SAS agent – an elite group of the British Army -, He was hired by a rival drug cartel to take down Escobar.
A new documentary, Killing Escobar, tells the story of this mission – which ended in failure – and the man behind it.
Filmmaker David Whitney has said that McAleese, born in Glasgow in 1942, was a “complex man” who had a great “inner turmoil”.
He was raised in the Riddrie neighborhood, in the shadow of Barlinnie Prison, where his father – “a ‘very hard and violent man” – spent time.
In the documentary, McAleese, who is now 78, says: “I was trained to kill by the military but the fighting instinct came from Glasgow.”
McAleese claims he left town and He joined the military at 17 to find a way to channel his aggression.
He enlisted in the Parachute Regiment and later became a member of the 22nd SAS Regiment.
He served in Borneo with the SAS, participating in a fierce war waged in the jungle, before withdrawing from the British Army in 1969, a move he calls the worst thing he has ever done.
McAleese was adrift, going from one job to another “without fitting in”. He said he felt lonely and that his aggression worsened to the point that he was jailed for assaulting a girlfriend.
After regaining his freedom, McAleese attempted to recreate the excitement of his military career by seeking to act as a “mercenary” in the civil war in Angola and later in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), as well as in South Africa.
I met Dave Tomkins in Angola in 1976. Tomkins was no ordinary soldier, he knew how to do business to sell guns.
The two became great friends and it was Tomkims who approached McAleese to offer him to participate in the mission to kill Escobar.
Jorge Salcedo, who was part of the Cali Cartel – a rival drug trafficking group in Colombia – was coordinating the attack and wanted Tomkins to recruit a team to carry it out.
McAleese was the first person he tried to recruit.
“They are not asking you to assassinate Pablo Escobar unless you have the required experience,” McAleese said.
“I had no moral conflict about his murder. I never considered it a murder. I saw him as a target,” he said.
The Cali Cartel were convinced that Escobar could be killed when he visited his luxurious Hacienda Npoles.
The massive property included a full zoo filled with exotic animals, a collection of vintage and luxury cars, a private airport, and an arena.
McAleese fly over the hacienda to recognize the place and agreed that it could be achieved. The mission was ambitious.
Tomkins recruited a team of 12 mercenaries. There were people who had worked with him before and people who had been recommended to him.
Jorge Salcedo helped them through customs checks and the Cali cartel funded their stay.
Each of the men would receive $ 5,000 per month plus fees but Tomkins was charging $ 1,000 a day.
The documentary had access to videos recorded by Tomkins which include scenes in which men are seen playing with large silver balls.
At first they stayed in the city of Cali but there they risked getting too much attention, so they moved to a farm in a rural area where they received a large arsenal weapons.
“It was like Christmas. Everything we needed in terms of weapons was there, ”says McAleese.
The mercenaries trained hard for their mission, but only Tomkins and McAleese knew who their target was.
Before being informed, a member of the group I decided to retire and was allowed to return home. He sold his story to newspapers but did not reveal names or give details of the operation.
As the time of the attack approached, the men moved their training to the jungle, where they could train with weapons and bombs without being heard.
The plan of attack involved the use of two helicopters to transport them to the Hacienda Npoles complex, where the mercenaries They had to make their way through Escobar’s large security device, kill him, and bring his head back as a trophy.
When informed by an informant that Escobar was at his ranch, they set off towards their objective. But the attack will never happen.
The helicopter carrying McAleese and Tomkins crashed as it flew low in the clouds over the Andes. The pilot was killed.
The others survived but McAleese was seriously injured to leave the scene.
Suffering from great pain, lying on the side of the mountain for three days until he is saved.
Escobar heard of the plan of attack and sent his men up the mountain to find them.
“If Pablo had caught me, I would have had a long, prolonged and painful death,” McAleese said.
Instead, he escaped and tried to fulfill the promises he made to God while lying on the mountainside.
McAleese acknowledges that he was a “dirty and shameless man” and that he realized he had to change.
But it says that what he regretted was not his actions in war zones, but his failures as a husband and as a father.
“I have a horrible amount of regrets and none of them have to do with that part of my life as a soldier,” he said.
At 78, he says he has finally found peace.
Meanwhile, Pablo Escobar was shot dead in Medelln in 1993 as he tried to flee from the authorities.
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