Word: escobar
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...first eight blocks we commended ourselves on surviving both our dinner and our first week in Bogotá, despite my mother’s prediction that I wouldn’t make it past the airport without Pablo Escobar kidnapping me and demanding a ransom that she assured me she would not pay. So far, all seemed quiet on the kidnapping front. The rabbi, at least, seemed relieved...
Medellín has always had trouble living down its reputation. In the 1980s and '90s it was one of the most dangerous cities in the world - first as the headquarters of Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel and then as the playground of right-wing paramilitary groups. But Medellín's murder rate dropped steadily after paramilitary fighters started putting down their arms in 2003 as part of a peace agreement with the government - and the city, one of the most dynamic industrial centers of Colombia, slowly re-established itself as a metropolis to reckon with. (See pictures from...
...Colombian girlfriend and now, along with an Ecuadorian partner, designs buildings in Buenos Aires. Still, his upbringing among fabulously wealthy criminals can show through in his blueprints. "He's a very good architect," say Entel, the filmmaker. "But sometimes you can see the way he grew up around Pablo Escobar reflected in his ideas. Because I would never think of designing furniture for inside a swimming pool...
Marroquín, who has the same thick face and wide girth of his father, describes Escobar as a doting parent. But as the manhunt for the drug lord intensified in the late 1980s, the family was forced underground and Marroquín saw his father only sporadically. Still, Escobar encouraged his children to lead their own lives. "My father did everything to keep us separated from his business," Marroquín says. "If I wanted to be a doctor, he said he would give me the best hospital. If I wanted to be a hairdresser, he said he would...
After his father's death, Marroquín suffered from depression. Landing in impoverished, war-ravaged Mozambique as his family sought refuge, he contemplated suicide as he considered how far his clan had fallen. The family's troubles continued in Buenos Aires. Escobar's widow, now known as Maria Isabel Santos, started a real estate business, but her accountant learned her true identity and tried to blackmail her, Marroquín says. His mother reported the extortion attempt but was forced to reveal her ties to Escobar. Startled Argentine authorities abruptly detained Santos, who was held for 18 months...