The secrets and revelations of La Catedral, the luxury prison that Pablo Escobar built 30 years ago

On June 19, 1991, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Colombia’s best-known and bloodthirsty drug lord, once again deceived Colombians by allegedly submitting to the country’s justice system and being deprived of liberty in La Catedral prison, in Envigado, Antioquia, a place from which the drug dealer continued to conduct his illicit business and lived comfortably.

While Colombians believed that the Colombian capo’s reign of terror was over, Pablo Escobar was living at ease in a prison that he had it built himself and that it was guarded by bought soldiers. Escobar got there by taking advantage of decree 2047 of submission to justice, issued by then president César Gaviria.

After more than a year of a cruel war between the State and the Extraditables – a group in which Escobar was, for whom they offered up to 2,700 million pesos -, The then president issued this decree in which he offered guarantees and reduced penalties to drug traffickers who went to justice and collaborated with it.

Escobar took advantage of this measure and of Father Rafael García Herreros, who at that time made the famous television space of the Minute of God. The Capo made the priest believe that he wanted to go to justice, but that he feared being assassinated in Itagüí prison, where there were many other drug lords.

“They told me he wanted to surrender. They told me you wanted to talk to me. Oh, sea, oh, Coveñas sea at five o’clock in the afternoon, when the sun goes down. What should I do? They tell me he’s tired of his life and his struggles, and I can’t tell anyone, my secret. However, it drowns me inside …“, The religious was heard say in his program on April 4 of that year, while performing the traditional prayer at the sea of ​​Coveñas.

At the time Father García Herreros and Pablo Escobar started an exchange of messages, while the priest also spoke with Rafael Pardo, then security adviser, and with President Gaviria, with the aim of reaching what they believed to be the end of a dark period for the country. Eventually, the state gave in to the fears of Pablo Escobar and They adapted a three hectare plot in Envigado to build the famous La Catedral prison.

According to Semana Magazine, the prison construction contract included a special clause with which the drug trafficker made sure to be at the origin of the construction and thus constitute the supposed prison in his luxury house, in addition to have the option to escape a time later, as he did a year and a month later. “No police or military authority will have access to the internal part of the prison …”, could one read in the construction contract.

Months later, the truth would be discovered behind the bars of La Catedral, a luxurious place where Pablo Escobar dressed, ate and enjoyed the luxury he wanted, and even where he killed some of his partners in cold blood and without anyone finding out.

The complex and luxurious construction to which Pablo Escobar arrived by helicopter had football fields, gymnasium, natural waterfalls, large windows with dream views, paintings decorating the walls, among many other luxuries that the boss and his guests have enjoyed.

In the early morning of July 22, 1992, Pablo Escobar escapes with some of his men from the installations of La Catedral. The capo and his accomplices fled on foot and taking advantage of the fog of the moment, which is why they crossed the wooded area of ​​the place, fleeing the authorities, some discoveries that have been made over the years indicate that the drug dealer escaped dressed as a woman, information that El Tiempo revealed several years ago.

Currently, The Cathedral is a place that attracts many tourists and has Antioquia experts who give tours of some of the areas that remain standing., while they tell the story of the prison that the most famous Colombian drug dealer internationally built for him and which was part of one of his crimes against Colombians.

KEEP READING: