J. J. Ballesteros and Javier Pena – 1992
After Escobar’s ‘surrender’ and confinement to ‘La Catedral,’ the luxury prison he built in Envigado, Pablo handed over control of the Medellin cartel to two of his lieutenants, Fernando Galeano and Gerardo Moncada. He demanded that they collect an exorbitant tax from the members of the cartel to compensate him for the terrorist campaign he led to force the Colombian government into abolishing the extradition treaty with the United States. In the weeks leading to his escape, Pablo kidnapped, tortured and killed a score of his associates, who apparently were reluctant or refused to pay the tax. When he heard that Galeano and Moncada were voicing their disapproval with the tax, he kidnapped them, accused them of stealing from him, and brutally murdered them at La Catedral.
This was a tremendous embarrassment for the Colombian government. They turned a blind eye to Escobar’s drug trafficking activities from La Catedral despite the evidence presented to them by the DEA. The deal Escobar cut with the government for his ‘surrender’ amounted to him setting up shop behind the protection of the Colombian army. He wanted protection from the Colombian National Police, who he had declared a personal war against offering a bounty for killing its officers; the DEA, who he believed were waiting to kidnap him and spirit him away to the United States at any moment; and, the Cali cartel, who he believed were trying to kill him. Escobar claimed that the Cali cartel acquired three 300-pound general purpose bombs from El Salvador to kill him. I was involved in the investigation relating to the theft of the bombs from El Salvadoran Air Force. It was determined that the bombs were meant for use against the FARC and not Escobar. However, I don’t doubt that the Cali cartel would have liked to see him dead.
Although the Colombian government condoned Escobar’s drug trafficking activities from the prison, it could not ignore that he was torturing and murdering people at the prison. This put the government in a peculiar position. The eyes of the world were watching. They had to do something.
Typical of the way the upper strata of the Colombian government refused to deal firmly and decisively with Escobar, on July 22, 1992 President Gaviria sent the Deputy Minister of Justice and the National Director of Prisons to inform Pablo of a “temporary” transfer to a military prison to improve the security of La Catedral. Pablo saw through the ruse and seized the deputy minister and director of prisons to hold them hostage. The military, which had cordoned off La Catedral refused to act. The government had to turn to the Urbana, a multi-service hostage rescue unit trained by Seventh Group U.S. Special Forces to free the hostages.
It was no secret that the Colombian Army collaborated with the Medellin cartel against the FARC, ELN, and EPL guerrillas (remember the adage: the enemy of my enemy is my friend?). The Colombian National Police weren’t allowed within two miles of the prison in accordance with Escobar’s surrender agreement.
Escobar’s hand-picked guards at the prison provided cover for Pablo and his people to cover his escape when the Urbana came calling. A fierce firefight ensued. In the end, the deputy minister and director of prisons were freed, unharmed. However, Pablo and his cronies were allowed through the security cordon by the army before the Colombian hostage rescue team could apprehend him. The net result, after a thirteen-month vacation at ‘Club Medellin’, as many referred to La Catedral, Pablo was on the run again.
An extraordinary meeting of the Colombian equivalent of the National Security Council was convened at the Presidential Palace to address the recapture of Pablo Escobar. The U.S. Ambassador and DEA Country Attaché were invited to attend. The Ambassador committed funding, material assistance, technological, and intelligence support to Operation Envigado, as the operation came to be known. A team of communications experts comprised of members of Delta Force, Navy Seals, and the National Security Agency were to be deployed to the Carlos Holguin police academy in Medellin to provide their technological expertise.
The Ambassador asked that a team of DEA agents also be deployed to Medellin to assist the Search Bloc’s efforts to track down and capture Pablo Escobar. The Colombians agreed to allowing only two agents to join the Cuerpo Élite (Elite Corps) heading the Search Bloc. Upon recommendation of the Minister of Defense, it was decided that I be one of those agents to handle the weapons and explosives issues they were no doubt to encounter.
No one could have foreseen this request being made by the Colombian government, least of all me (although it shouldn’t have surprised me, given the stellar relationship I had developed working with the police and military intelligence units). My mission was focused solely on affecting the flow of firearms, explosives, and military ordnance to the narco-traffickers and anti-government guerrillas — not hunting down the world’s most notorious criminal since Al Capone. It just goes to show you, if you dedicate yourself to your work and do the right thing when it matters, good things will happen (that is, if you consider being thrown into a pit of hungry lions a good thing).
On the following day, the DEA Country Attaché informed me of the government’s request and asked if I would agree to accept this dangerous assignment. Naturally, I accepted, although my agency had some concerns about my safety. I prepared a memo to headquarters outlining why it was imperative that I do this, and they agreed with some reservation. I had to make a series of calls postponing training at the War College and various naval bases. I conferred with my intelligence counterparts at the DAS, the Twentieth Brigade, and the Colombian National Police’s Illegally Armed Groups Investigative Unit advising them that I would continue to work with them on any issue from the Carlos Holguin police academy in Medellin.
I had other fires to attend to, specifically the theft of weapons and ordnance from Venezuelan military armories resulting from the coups perpetrated by Hugo Chávez or his supporters. I met with the Venezuelan intelligence agent assigned to Bogota, who gave me vital information relating to another batch of M73 60mm mortars that had been stolen from a Venezuelan military armory just before I left for Medellin. I also spoke with the colonel at the Twentieth Brigade relating to an anti-tank rocket smuggling ring operating between Ecuador and Pasto, Colombia. I guaranteed them that I would stay on top of both issues.
If memory serves, I seem to recall that I flew to Medellin on the DEA aircraft by myself. The DEA agent heading the mission, Javier Peña was either on his way or handling another issue and would join me later. The twin engine DEA Aero Commander touched down at the Rio Negro airport on the outskirts of Medellin at twilight, as I recall. For security reasons, we taxied to a fringe area of the airport where I was met by a group of heavily armed plain clothes CNP officers in two Mitsubishi Montero jeep-like vehicles. They loaded my bag in one of the Monteros and they ferried me down the mountain to the Carlos Holguin police academy in Medellin where I was taken to the officer’s quarters and assigned a room I shared with a CNP major.
I really didn’t know what to expect, other than I was to take the point when it came to guns, explosives, or bombs. Sure, I had some expertise regarding the players in the Medellin cartel, but in no way to the degree that Javier Peña had and later, Steve Murphy. Murphy hadn’t been in Colombia all that long when all this transpired and he handled the operation from Bogota, coordinating between Javier and I and the embassy at first. He would come to Medellin later and play a significant part in the final downfall of Pablo Escobar.
I don’t sleep much as it is, but that night I didn’t sleep at all. Too many things were going through my mind. Was I up to it, whatever it was that was expected of me? I had worked undercover; handled arsons, bombings, and improvised explosive devices; and, handled unstable explosives. It was a different world and as far as I could tell, I was the only gringo in sight. I found myself in another one of those situations that seemed to constantly present themselves to me since I came to Colombia. I was doing what no ATF agent had ever done before (or would do since) and I was going to have to make it up as I went along.
Stay tuned.
