It triggered direct hostilities by the cartel against the Colombian state, commencing with the murders of Minister Lara Bonilla on 30 April 1984, and Colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez two years later.

This operation led to a police incursion into a property of El Mocho in the municipality of Tena, Cundinamarca, where they found connections with Verónica Rivera de Vargas, alias the Queen of Cocaina.

With that information, Minister Lara ordered the suspension of any flight that was seen as suspicious, dealing a heavy blow to the cartels' operations, as well as denouncing dirty money in different political parties and even in sport teams.

Security protection for Minister Lara was strict under Colonel Ramírez and the DEA, who frustrated a first attempt at murder in Medellín which led to the arrest of American Joseph Harold Rosenthal, alias Edward John Burn, involved in money laundering associated to narcotics.

[3] With the destruction of Tranquilandia, the cartel declared war on the Colombian State, starting with the murder of Minister Lara on 30 April 1984, seven weeks after the seizure of the cocaine production camp.

On 18 August 1989, a successor of Ramírez, Colonel Waldemar Franklin Quintero, was also murdered by the same cartel, but four months later, on 15 December 1989, justice received its first meaningful victory in that war with the death of Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, alias The Mexican.

[4] The next success was when Pablo Escobar Gaviria, alias El Patrón, surrendered himself to the authorities in 1991, however he made sure that the Colombian government would agree to a non-extradition regulation so that he could not be extradited to the United States.