The story of Pablo Escobar's partner who cared for James Rodríguez

At the helm of the Envigado club for more than ten years, Gustavo Upegui has been recognized as the sports leader who has led the second division club to become the cradle of the big stars of Colombian football. James Rodriguez, Fredy Guarin, Juan Fernando Quintero and Dorlan Pabon. But behind the image of the successful businessman hiding that of a ruthless drug dealer, capable of betraying to death his closest partners to preserve the autonomy of the trade.

In the history of crime in Colombia, it is unclear how Upegui entered the profitable coca market, but once in 1998, he decided to tell the newspaper The spectator how he met Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellín cartel with whom he was linked at the time. It was in the 60s when his family settled in Envigado, in a diagonal house of that of Abel Escobar and Doña Hermilda Gaviria, the capo's parents.

At that time, they were childhood friends, until their family moved again. They met again in the 1980s, sharing political activities, when Escobar decided to run as a member of Congress in order to avoid accepting the extradition treaty with the United States. United for the drug traffickers, who eventually catapulted him. This is the story of Upegui. But the authorities had another version.

For them, it was Escobar himself who initiated Upegui to drug trafficking, until he became his right arm, even for personal activities such as bringing exotic animals to fill the zoo of the farm. from Naples. Later, when the corporal created a criminal enterprise to train badbadins – the nightmare that still exists today – at the Envigado office, Upegui was in front of her.

Upegui has always denied this relationship, but several episodes said the opposite. In March 1988, an ambush of two thousand men in uniform surrounded El Bizcocho farm, located in the Poblado neighborhood of Medellín, belonging to Upegui, but which was actually aimed at capturing Escobar, who managed to escape. under his slip, according to the newspaper. at that time, the national media. The capo was not found but there was a burglary.

Instead, the authorities found documents related to Escobar and Upegui with corrupt senior officials of the state. Even when the capo surrendered to Caesar Gaviria's government to pay for his imprisonment in the prison he had built, the cathedral left Upegui responsible for affairs on the outside. It was at this time that Escobar tried his luck by finishing with a mafia clan, the Galeanos and Moncadas, condemning his own death.

There was the formation of Los Pepes (persecuted by Pablo Escobar) by their main enemies, at the head of the Cali cartel and the paramilitaries of Castaño. It is this criminal structure that has helped, with intelligence and a ruthless blood war, the Colombian and American authorities to bring down the leader of the Medellin cartel. This ended with the murder of Escobar in December 1993, killed by security forces on the roof of a house while he was trying to flee.

In fact, a report from the prosecutor's office revealed in VerdadAbierta.com ensures that one of the founders of Los Pepes was the same upegui. What they explain, is that after being personal friends, they wanted to stay in the exclusive power of the Office, as has happened elsewhere, in the company of Another former Escobar employee, the paramilitary alias Don Berna.

"This new power has made available to the existing political structure in the municipality of Envigado, which is absolute and to which no political force opposes for obvious reasons," says the report of the prosecutor's office , cited by the portal of investigation. At that time, Gustavo Upegui also marked another important story of drug trafficking, when he bought the shares of the club Envigado FC.

Envigado FC had a year in the first division and only four in the foundation, when the exconcejal J. Mario Rodríguez, its then president, invited Upegui to become his partner. He ended up buying the entire club for a well-defined purpose, identifying the promises of young football to bring them to fame and so value the recent team. It was then that an 11-year-old boy who scored two Olympic goals at this age appeared in a children's championship.

It was at the Atanasio Girardot stadium in Medellín, in 2003, in the final of the Pony Fútbol league. He was called James Rodriguez. The same day, after the victory, Upegui himself went to talk to his mother, María del Pilar Rubio, and his father-in-law, Juan Carlos Restrepo, to propose a club to train him. The idea was that he would play first in the Independiente Medellín, then in the Envigado professional. Then, the family moved from his hometown, Ibague, to Medellín.

Tell a story of Both shores that Upegui gave them a place to live and found work for parents. James started playing big, but technicians worried about his small size. Then, the club Envigado FC did the same thing as Barcelona for Messi, gave a hormonal treatment to the little one to allow him to gain in power and size. like Juan Fernando Quintero.

With muscle and muscle treatment, James reached 1.80 meters. In 2006, the Envigado managed to win the 10th place and sent him to make his debut with 14 years, during the second half of a match against Cúcuta Deportivo. A month after this first meeting at the professional, the head of his club, the businessman Gustavo Upegui, was murdered. The entire episode is recorded in the book James, his life, in which journalist Nelson Fredy Padilla makes a biography of what has become the star of Colombian football, now Bayern Munich midfielder.

On July 3, 2007, eight men dressed as police and pretending to raid entered an Upegui farm in San Jerónimo, Antioquia, and shot him in cold blood. The badbadination took place in the midst of an internal conflict in the Office. Daniel Mejía, aka "Danielito", ordered him to remain at the head of the criminal organization.

After the death of the athletic director, the club collapsed, a year later he returned to the second division and was included in Clinton's list until recently. And all this web of illegality was not enough for Upegui to go to jail, he only paid 45 days for a triple homicide. Already at the head of Envigado FC, they abducted their two sons, released them, but their three kidnappers were killed in a mbadacre perpetrated in Bajo Cauca in Antioquia with the help of Don Berna. For this case, he was arrested in 1998.

He never returned to prison, either because of his obvious relationship with Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel, nor because of the money laundering he committed at Envigado FC, nor because of his crimes for which he was appointed head of the Bureau. Even did not open 16 processes related to those killed by mechanical asphyxiation and piles in the Aburrá Valley that left at least 70 dead, according to VerdadAbierta.com.