The Life of Pablo Escobar: Known as "The Godfather" of the Medellin Colombian Drug Cartel
Pablo Emilio Gavoroa Escobar-also known as "The Godfather"-was the founder and leader of the Medellin Colombian drug cartel in the 1970's and 1980's. One of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world, he started out in cocaine trafficking as a middleman who obtained small amounts of coca paste from Ecuador and sold it within Colombia. He then bought it from newly established laboratories in the Columbian Amazon where the paste had been converted into cocaine and employed couriers ("mules") who moved it to traffickers in Panama This was not sufficient to bring in serious money, though, and Escobar took the business vertical so that he could buy in bulk directly from Bolivia and Peru. Using the cash he had obtained through partnerships with the Ochoa brothers, he started making cocaine in his own laboratories. "By the mid-1970s, his criminal activities in car theft, kidnapping, fencing stolen goods, and drug trafficking yielded sufficient profits to establish his own labs and smuggling routes" (1). When Carlos Lehder bought Norman's Cay, an archipelago in the Bahamas, the cartel was able to considerably step up its capacity to move cocaine into the United States. Lehder equipped the narrow strip of coral reef with cocai
ne transport facilities-electronic equipment and an airport-and larger shipments of cocaine began to reach the Florida Everglades and locations in the Southwest via Mexico To kept the authorities from interfering with their operation, Escobar and Lehder bribed Lynden Pindling, the governor-general of the Bahamas, and Panama's dictator, Manuel Noriega. Escobar invested his money in land and buildings, and construction in Medellin quadrupled in the 1980's, thanks to the cartel drug mafia's money, and Escobar soon had an 8,000-acre ranch equipped with five swimming pools, man made lakes, and a jet aircraft runway (1). Escobar's cartel affected the U.S. in much the same way that organized crime usually does. It infected society with crimes beyond drug trafficking, such as money-laundering, and it reduced the level of privacy of the average citizen, as the government needed access to private information for the purpose of convicting criminals (2). Furthermore, A hidden impact is that of the drug trade inside the U.S.; "the domestic drug trade has a destabilizing effect on the U.S. as well" (3). This explains why President Reagan signed a National Security directive in 1986, designating the international drug trade as a national security issue. The consumption of over $100 billion of illicit narcotics by an estimated 84 million Americans results in lower worker productivity, more frequent accidents with consequent loss of life and property, and "the diversion of economic resources into non-productive purposes. As an illicit activity, it enhances the power of criminals and criminal organizations, shifting power away from legitimate authority" (3). The war on drugs has never been won; it continues today, and its deleterious effects are still eroding our national security, integrity, and economy. The flow of illegal narcotics from Latin America is a serious national security issue for the United States. This may be a surprising statement for those accustomed to thinking of national security as defense, weapons, alliances, and the military
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Approximate Word count = 1387
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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