World History of Organized Crime

Columbia (1x3)

: 01, 2002

"I think there are very few people in the history of the world that were able to accomplish what Pablo Escobar did in terms of intimidating a country, basically controlling a country." --Joe Toft, DEA, ret. This is less an overview of organized crime in Colombia, and more the rise and fall of one man: drug lord Pablo Escobar. His operation could serve as a sort of satanic B-school model of vertical integration, from the fields producing coca plants right up to the crack for sale at your local street corner. (Depending on your neighborhood, I suppose.) Escobar fancied himself a sort of Robin Hood, and even got himself elected to the Colombian Congress, but he was some vicious piece of work; not only would he routinely kill reporters who wrote things that didn't sit well with him, he would preface the hit by sending the reporter an invitation to his own funeral. The Medellin cartel was formed in the 1970s, and came to supply 80% of the world's cocaine; before long, there were ten murders a day in that city as a matter of course. Escobar died Butch and Sundance style, in a shootout with the authorities, and the episode pays brief lip service to Colombian organized crime after his death; but this installment particularly is plagued with repetitions and the lack of much historical perspective.