PABLO ESCOBAR WHITE HOUSE DRIVER

When word reached him the Moncada and Galeano brothers had been siphoning off Medellin cartel profits, Escobar invited them to La Catedral for a “chat”.

When the cartel boss was given five years in his own prison, known as La Catedral and built in a deal with the Colombian government, Popeye went too.ĭespite supposed incarceration, Escobar maintained his drug empire, netting Sh450 billion per year while continuing to sanction kill after kill. Popeye, given his nickname for his protruding jaw – since corrected through surgery – also acted as Escobar’s bodyguard. I simply did what he asked and he paid me the money.” 'El Patron' Pablo Escobar I give you 100 million (Sh3.3million) – go now and find that man and kill him’. He goes on: “I remember the Medellin lottery was set to payout 80 million pesos and when Don Pablo gave me a killing to carry out he phoned to say ‘Popeye, how much does the lottery pay? 80 million pesos (Sh2.3 million). The deeds that I have done never deprived me of sleep.” The idea that a person cannot sleep for thinking about killing someone never applied to me. It was the same for everyone I carried out. I was given that work and carried out his orders. Don Pablo said ‘Yes, sure, that man deserves to be killed, he is mean’. The hitman says: “Her son later asked for Don Pablo’s permission because no one could be killed in the city without it.

PABLO ESCOBAR WHITE HOUSE DRIVER

Popeye’s first kill was that of a driver who pulled away when letting an old lady off his bus, leaving her to fall and later die. He spoke slowly, with a lot of respect he looked everyone in the eye when he spoke to them.” He never shouted once, never made snide remarks, nothing, he was a clear man. He would capture people’s minds through the affection he could show them as a friend. Don Pablo was a very respectful man to those who gave it to him. And although he was not educated he had a supremely intelligent criminal mind. In all my years, he never threatened me once. The day I looked in Pablo Escobar’s eyes I knew there and then I would die for him if need be.ĭespite how he is portrayed on film he was a very quiet man, a friend and a father-like figure. 'He had incredible magnetism but was exaggeratedly plain. He had this huge presence, like an aura around him. The killer recalls: “When I first met Escobar it was like I had seen a God. But when the relationship ended, Escobar retained Popeye, sensing his loyalty. Owning a gun permit, he was hired as a bodyguard to one of the King of Cocaine’s mistresses. So we started to do the same, and more, under those war conditions because one has to have that mentality to survive. I found my friends with their knees, teeth and brain drilled. During the war when the Search Bloc (a specialist police unit set up to hunt for Escobar) took control of the morgues here in Medellín, they put my friends alive in the incinerators they were throwing my friends alive from helicopters from more than 1,000ft in the rainforest. I found them beheaded and with hands and limbs cut off. I was in a war and they were killing my family, my friends and my colleagues.

Not shame, not sadness, not happiness, it was simply like a day at the office carrying out Don Pablo’s orders. Whenever I took a life, I didn’t feel anything. He says matter of factly: “You have to understand I was a professional killer. John Jairo Velasquez also acted as Escobar's bodyguard He says he simply carried out Escobar’s orders. From his then girlfriend to the bombing of a commercial airliner in which 107 people died, no one was off limits. With no hint of remorse, Popeye killed anyone who needed to be killed. Just a few days later he kidnapped Bogota mayoral candidate Andres Pastrana, who would survive the ordeal and become the 57th President of Colombia, serving from 1998 to 2002. Given the title “Asesino de confianza de Pablo Escobar ” (Murderer of respected Pablo Escobar), Popeye later confessed it was he who killed Hoyos in captivity. Popeye was also responsible for high-profile kidnappings, among them that of Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos in January 1988. He was the mastermind behind some 200 car bombs during Escobar’s Medellin cartel’s war against its rivals and the Colombian state. He took almost 300 lives, orchestrating the deaths of another 3,000 and was paid up to Sh9.8 million for those he personally took out. Known simply by his nickname Popeye, he killed not for fun but out of loyalty to “El Patron” (the boss).

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