“My life was the life of a criminal,” Juan Pablo later recalled. After he orchestrated the murder of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombia’s Minister of Justice, Juan Pablo, his mother, and his sister were forced to go on the run. And Escobar’s massive fortune meant that his son never lacked for anything.īut Escobar’s violent career made life difficult for his family. Officially, Pablo Escobar had just one son: Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, who goes by Sebastián Marroquín today and lives in Argentina.īorn in 1977 as the eldest child of Escobar and Henao, Juan Pablo had a loving, luxurious childhood. YouTube Pablo Escobar, pictured with his son Juan Pablo, his daughter Manuela, and his wife Maria Victoria Henao. “I grew up being molded by Pablo to be his wife and the mother of his children, not to ask questions or challenge his choices, to look the other way,” she wrote.īut while Henao focused on being Escobar’s wife and the mother of their son and daughter, her husband entertained several extramarital affairs, including a relationship with the Colombian journalist Virginia Vallejo. Escobar: My Life with Pablo, Henao didn’t initially know what her husband did for a living. Henao called the much older Escobar the “love of her life,” and they got married three years later when she was 15.Īccording to her autobiography, Mrs. Pablo Escobar met his wife, Maria Victoria Henao, when she was just 12 years old and he was 23. Escobar’s father, Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar Echeverri, was a farmer and a watchman. Unlike her criminal son, she had a law-abiding career as a schoolteacher. Pablo Escobar’s mother was Hermilda de Los Dolores Gaviria Berrío. Escobar allegedly falsified diplomas, took tombstones from graveyards to resell, and stole cars. There, determined to make it rich, he gravitated toward crime at a young age. Where Is Pablo Escobar From?īorn on December 1, 1949, in Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia, Pablo Escobar grew up in a suburb of Medellín called Envigado. As such, he has a somewhat complicated legacy in the country today as both a violent drug lord and a philanthropist.
He built hospitals and housing for the poor and was elected to the Colombian parliament in 1982. In 1989, the cartel was even accused of planting a bomb on a domestic passenger flight, killing over 100 people on the airplane.īut many Colombians also saw Escobar as a “Robin Hood” figure. He and his cartel killed police, politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. From the founding of the cartel in the 1970s until Escobar’s death in 1993, the lucrative drug trade made Escobar billions.ĭuring his life, Escobar lived by the mantra of “ plata o plomo,” which roughly translates to “silver or lead (bullets),” and describes how he used both violence and bribery to get his way. Pablo Escobar was the head of the Medellín Cartel, a Colombian drug cartel that trafficked cocaine.
Eric VANDEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, pictured in 1988.