In 1976, Escobar founded the Medellín Cartel, which distributed powder cocaine, and established the first smuggling routes from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, through Colombia and eventually into the United States.

As a result, he quickly became one of the richest people in the world,[1][3] but constantly battled rival cartels domestically and abroad, leading to massacres and the murders of police officers, judges, locals, and prominent politicians.

In 1991, Escobar surrendered to authorities, and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on a host of charges, but struck a deal of no extradition with Colombian President César Gaviria, with the ability of being housed in his own, self-built prison, La Catedral.

[6] Escobar's legacy remains controversial; while many denounce the heinous nature of his crimes, he was seen as a "Robin Hood-like" figure for many in Colombia, as he provided many amenities to the poor.

Having forged a high school diploma, he studied briefly in college with the goal of becoming a criminal lawyer, a politician, and eventually the president but had to give up because of lack of money.

[18] Although the Medellín Cartel was only established in the early 1970s, it expanded after Escobar met several drug lords on a farm in April 1978, and by the end of 1978 they had transported some 19,000 kilograms of cocaine to the United States.

[20] Soon, the demand for cocaine greatly increased in the United States, which led to Escobar organizing more smuggling shipments, routes, and distribution networks in South Florida, California, Puerto Rico, and other parts of the country.

He and cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder worked together to develop a new trans-shipment point in the Bahamas, an island called Norman's Cay about 350 km (220 mi) southeast of the Florida coast.

Escobar and Robert Vesco purchased most of the land on the island, which included a 1-kilometre (3,300 ft) airstrip, a harbor, a hotel, houses, boats, and aircraft, and they built a refrigerated warehouse to store the cocaine.

With the enormous profits generated by this route, Escobar was soon able to purchase 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi) of land in Antioquia for several million dollars, on which he built the Hacienda Nápoles.

While bribing and murdering several judges, in the fall of 1985, the wanted Escobar requested the Colombian government to allow his conditional surrender without extradition to the United States.

It supported the far-left guerrilla movement that attacked the Colombian Judiciary Building and killed half of the justices of the Supreme Court on 6 November 1985.

Escobar then planted a bomb on Avianca Flight 203 in an attempt to assassinate Galán's successor, César Gaviria Trujillo, who missed the plane and survived.

Eventually, the government negotiated with Escobar and convinced him to surrender and cease all criminal activity in exchange for a reduced sentence and preferential treatment during his captivity.

Escobar was confined in what became his own luxurious private prison, La Catedral, which featured a football pitch, a giant dollhouse, a bar, a Jacuzzi, and a waterfall.

Accounts of Escobar's continued criminal activities while in prison began to surface in the media, which prompted the government to attempt to move him to a more conventional jail on 22 July 1992.

Escobar's influence allowed him to discover the plan in advance and make a successful escape, spending the remainder of his life evading the police.

[32] On 4 July 2006, Virginia Vallejo, a television anchorwoman romantically involved with Escobar from 1983 to 1987, offered Attorney General Mario Iguarán her testimony in the trial against former Senator Alberto Santofimio, who was accused of conspiracy in the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán.

[33][34] On 18 July 2006, Vallejo was taken to the United States on a special flight of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for "safety and security reasons" due to her cooperation in high-profile criminal cases.

[35][36] On 24 July, a video in which Vallejo had accused Santofimio of instigating Escobar to eliminate presidential candidate Galán was aired by RCN Television of Colombia.

She stated that Escobar had financed the operation, which was committed by M-19; she blamed the army for the killings of more than 100 people, including 11 Supreme Court magistrates, M-19 members, and employees of the cafeteria.

Her statements prompted the reopening of the case in 2008; Vallejo was asked to testify, and many of the events she had described in her book and testimonial were confirmed by Colombia's Commission of Truth.

[46] This attitude proved to be the reason the cartel did not kill her and her children after Pablo's death, although the group demanded and received millions of dollars in reparations for Escobar's war against them.

[51] On 5 June 2018, the Argentine federal judge Nestor Barral accused her and her son, Sebastián Marroquín Santos, of money laundering with two Colombian drug traffickers.

[60] After Escobar's death, the ranch, zoo and citadel at Hacienda Nápoles were given by the government to low-income families under a law called Extinción de Dominio (Domain Extinction).

[68] In 2018, National Geographic published another article on the hippos which found disagreement among environmentalists on whether they were having a positive or negative impact but that conservationists and locals – particularly those in the tourism industry – were mostly in support of their continued presence.

[70] On 22 February 2019, at 11:53 AM local time, Medellín authorities demolished the six-story Edificio Mónaco apartment complex in the El Poblado neighborhood where, according to retired Colombian general Rosso José Serrano, Escobar planned some of his most brazen attacks.

Mayor Federico Gutierrez had been pushing to raze the building and erect in its place a park honoring the thousands of cartel victims, including four presidential candidates and some 500 police officers.

[74] A drug distributor, Griselda Blanco, is also reported to have conducted a clandestine but passionate relationship with Escobar; several items in her diary link him with the nicknames "Coque de Mi Rey" (My Coke King) and "Polla Blanca" (White Cock).

De Berdouare would later hire a documentary film crew and professional treasure hunters to search the edifice before and after demolition, for anything related to Escobar or his cartel.