The Rolling Stones, García Márquez and Simón Bolívar's sword: the most famous myths about Pablo Escobar

The drug trafficker Pablo Escobar has become a kind of popular myth around the world, having ambaded a fortune of 420 million dollars a week, produced cocaine trafficking, making him the seventh richest man in the world, according to the exclusive List of Forbes magazine, between 1987 and 1993, when he was shot by the Colombian police force.

But the truth is that the head of the Medellín cartel was a bloodthirsty capo that plunged Colombia in an urban violence never seen before in the history of the country in full war with the state, and that made more than 46 thousand victims. Despite this, his eccentricities continue to attract the attention and curiosity of many, even legends have been woven around him, given by some even though their loved ones have denied them.

A concert of the Rolling Stone at the Hacienda Napoles, the unicorn of his daughter Manuela, the car pierced by the bullets of Al Capote, the purchase of the sword Simón Bolívar, the financing of the taking of the Palace of Justice by the M-19, the offer of payment of the country's external debt and a meeting with the writer Gabriel García Márquez are part of it.

The stone that rolls to the Hacienda Nápoles

An incredible fable, full of imagination, was created with the emblematic property of the capo called Hacienda Nápoles, the impressive mansion located in the Magdalena Medio with airstrips, a collection of cars and motorbikes, swimming pools and a zoo with species the world. The well-known rock band, Rolling Stone, reportedly participated in a private concert for Escobar in the early 80's.

Legend has it that the British quintet did not stop playing until the capo settled. Of course, there is no trace of such an anecdote. But the myth was so appealing that the Argentine artist Luciano Denver designed, in 2012, an exhibition entitled "Myth", which simulated this episode through photographs, paintings and posters.

The drug dealer who was openly a fan of the Stones was his partner Carlos Lehder, unlike other gangsters, had an education in the United States that broadened cultural tastes. There was also a rumor that the group would play Posada Alemana, in the Eje Cafetero, belonging to this member of the Medellín cartel.

There was no concert either. But in his autobiography, Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood said that in 1979, Lehder invited him, along with Ringo Starr, the drummer of the British band The Beatles, to spend a weekend at Norman Cay, the island of Bahamas, the Corporal bought to use it as a route of Colombian cocaine traffic to the United States.

An experience that Wood describes as an exchange of music and drugs that ended badly. "He decided (Lehder) that we were leaving with him and I do not think we have much more choice. (…) It was not so much an invitation as an order. He was a very dominant guyhe wrote in his autobiography.

Hacienda Napoles was already eccentric, but the myths she created about her exaggerate her even more. One of the best known was the supposed unicorn Escobar gave his daughter Manuela a birthday at an ostentatious party that took place there. Legend has it that, this mythological animal does not exist, he ordered his escort to sew a horn on the head of a horse, which soon died of an infection.

Although history may be possible among the cases of a gangster who believed to have the world in his hands, his widow, Maria Victoria Henao, recently denied it in the book My Life and My Prison with Pablo Escobar, that he recently launched with the Planet editor The woman admits that her husband did not hesitate to satisfy all the whims of his children, but at the feast of five years of Manuela Escobar was presented with a mare and calf and left immediately because he was already being pursued by the authorities.

"I want to talk about the famous unicorn who, it is said, says that Pablo gave his daughter what madness. They went so far as to say that Paul had ordered to fix a hairy on the forehead to a white horse and that they were fixing wings with staples in order to make it look like a unicorn . They also stated that the animal had died as a result of the infection caused by the injuries. I do not know where this atrocious story comes from, but the truth is that it never happenedwrote the widow in the book.

On the same farm, among the capo's car collection, there was a Pontiac 1933 full of holes made by bullets that belonged to Al Capone. Escobar was a great admirer of the famous American gangster of the 20's and 30's, so He ordered to buy a Ford similar, from a more recent model, and he himself shot him to look like a real.

In his book, Capo's son, Juan Pablo, says that the hacienda took its name in homage to Al Capone: "The father of the famous gangster of the twenties of last century, Gabrielle, was born in Naples, in Italy. . My father admired Al Capone and that is why he read how many books or newspapers he had talked about his criminal career.. Once, in one of the few interviews that he gave, a Japanese journalist asked him if he thought that he was bigger than Al Capone. And he replied, "I do not know how much Al Capone measured, but I think I'm taller than a few inches."

When the Colombian state began to harbad the drug traffickers, with the support of the United States, who were asking the government to approve the extradition treaty, it was announced that Escobar and the other leaders of Cartel of Medellín they offered to pay the country's foreign debt in exchange for the complete elimination of the possibility that required them, after their capture, to pay a fine in North American prisons.

This myth was created when several personalities intervened to find a negotiated solution ending the war that the mafia had started with the whole country. The gangsters even offered to deliver their cocaine processing labs, clandestine landing lanes and taxiways. . The document signed by the drug traffickers was sent to President Belisario Betancur of the time and to the DEA.

At that time, Escobar had already sent for murder the then Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who had denounced him to the Congress of the Republic. The government declared war on him, and the pretended offer to pay Colombia's external debt came at that time, but no official ever confirmed it..

Buy Simón Bolívar's sword

On the night of January 17, 1974, five hooded men entered the Quinta de Bolívar Museum, in the center of Bogotá, which was once the home of Manuela Sáenz, and broke the glbad of the urn where the sword of liberator Simon Bolivar It was the flight of the century and the marketing strategy of a group of guerrillas that announced its conformation, called M19.

A few weeks ago, strange paid advertisements had appeared in the most widely read newspaper in the country, The weather, announcing in encrypted messages its conformation in response to the alleged electoral fraud that led Misael Pastrana Borrero to the presidency. While the armed group was active, the authorities were still searching for Bolívar's sword. There was much speculation about his whereabouts, including the fact that he had been sold to Pablo Escobar.

Juan Pablo Escobar, the capo's son, said in his book that One day, his father arrived with a sword stating that it belonged to Simón Bolívar and gave it to him., and years later, he asked him to send it back to those who had given it to him to keep it. After the demobilization of the M19 in 1991, in sign of will for peace, they made the sword. After that, former guerrillas, now known to politicians in the country's public life, denied that the capo had ever had the sword.

Taking of the courthouse

On November 6, 1985, the M19 seized the courthouse. More than 100 people died in strange circumstances between guerrilla bullets and the army, including the dome of magistrates who composed the Supreme Court, and many missing people today, it is unclear where it is located . At the time, it had been speculated that the fighters had asked Escobar for money to finance this operation and that he had agreed to destroy the evidence kept against him in building.

This version was taken up in the book of former paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño, but this has never been proven. And in subsequent investigations against the guerrillas, the Special Court concluded that the "M19 acted alone". The purpose of this historic event for the country was actually to punish the then president, Belisario Betancur, for having betrayed the peace talks he had with him and other insurgent groups.

Meeting with Gabriel García Márquez

In an interview, John Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, aka "Popeye", one of Pablo Escobar's leading badbadins, badured that the Nobel Prize for Literature would have been served by Gabriel García Márquez as intermediary between Pablo Escobar and Fidel and Raúl Castro for an alleged shipment of cocaine from Cuba.

Supposedly, Popeye handed a letter to the writer for it to be delivered to the Castro brothers. In his letter, Capo asked Cuban leaders a Russian submarine for drug trafficking from Mexico to Havana, with final destination in Miami, United States. Nobody has ever confirmed this version, but there was even talk of a personal meeting between García Márquez and Escobar..

After the badbadination of Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, it was said that the Nobel had met the capodatist to try to get closer to the government in order to put an end to the violence that had been unleashed. This was denied by the journalist and writer Germán Castro Caycedo, who has always wanted to write a book on drug trafficking in Colombia from the point of view of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar himself.

The book never materialized. But during his investigation, Castro Caicedo met the mafioso eight times to know in depth his methodology. In the book In secret, parts of these conversations were recorded and it is badured that the supposed meeting with García Márquez did not exist.