Word: escobars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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With its crusade against the Medellin cocaine cartel coming up short, the Colombian government decided to raise the ante. Two months ago, officials offered $625,000 for information leading to the capture of either of the country's two most infamous traffickers: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, 39, and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, 42. Late last week police scored their greatest single victory in their four-month-old war on drugs by trapping and killing one of the two: the notoriously brutish billionaire Rodriguez Gacha. And it didn't cost a cent in reward money...
...Rodriguez Gacha hooked up with Pablo Escobar and the then fledgling Medellin cartel. Gradually he worked his way up to midlevel cocaine dealer, pioneering new routes through Mexico and into the U.S. This, coupled with his fascination for bandito folklore, earned him the nickname El Mexicano. Through the years he financed the import of expensive foreign technology to serve the cartel's needs, and he has been linked to paramilitary death squads...
Colombians greeted the news of Rodriguez Gacha's death by rejoicing in the streets. As for the government, the hit on Rodriguez Gacha was a significant victory, but the war continues, especially with Escobar still at large. Warns General Miguel Gomez Padilla, the national police director: "Remember, these people are even more dangerous when cornered...
President Virgilio Barco Vargas' four-month-old war against his country's top narcos -- Gacha, Pablo Escobar Gaviria and the three brothers of Medellin's Ochoa family -- has not gone as well as he or the nation had hoped. Since Mob hit men assassinated presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan in August and ignited Barco's offensive, the leaders of Colombia's coke cartels have gone into hiding, forfeiting posh estates and bank accounts; some law- enforcement officials believe that the drug princes have even undergone plastic surgery. Nevertheless, Gacha and company remain immensely powerful, with their pipeline...
...drug lords seem to be getting the message. An authorized spokesman for one of the cartels told TIME that Escobar, Gacha and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, don of the Cali cartel, recognize Barco's inflexibility and are waiting for his term to expire next August. Says the source: "They'll try to reason with the next President." But "reason" is surely a euphemism for "control." Through intermediaries, the narcos are putting money behind candidates for President, Congress and mayors of key cities. After election day, the bill will come...