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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Drugs What If Your Dad Were Pablo Escobar?

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:13 AM

This photograph shows Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and his only son on a family trip. It's a typical tourist snapshot, taken before Escobar begins his reign of terror over Colombia. This is when he's still just a big-time drug dealer, the controller of most of the world's cocaine—but not yet the man behind the assassinations of leaders and the cowing of an entire country. He looks pretty much just like any other parent with his kid in tow at the gates of the White House.

I knew very little about Pablo Escobar before watching Sins of My Father this weekend. Though the 2009 movie is the story of Escobar's only son—who lives in exile under another name, and who's attempting to make peace with some of the sons of the men his father slaughtered—it's still, really, a re-telling of the bone-chilling story of Pablo Escobar. I have no memory of how it got onto my Netflix, but I'm here to tell you that you want to get it onto yours.

On the jump, footage (with The Godfather theme!) of La Catedral, the "prison" Escobar built for himself in 1991, and the ruin that's at that spot today.

Comments (3) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Very interesting. I'm totally adding this to my Netflix queue.

Posted by TVDinner

on December 20, 2011 at 10:41 AM

He had another palace, still unfinished at his death, in Tulum, Mexico, at the end of the beach road south before you enter the Sian Ka'an nature reserve. At least that was the rumor, "Pablo Escobar's place". You can't see it from the road but if you walk the beach south past the last palapas you'll see its grey concrete shell, covered with graffiti. It's still guarded by Mexican soldiers, which is a little surreal when you see groups of teenage boys in uniforms with AK-47s walking down the pristine beach with their girlfriends.

Posted by Fnarf