MAP's index for the series: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n000/a251.html

Bookmark: Reports about Colombia: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia

HOMEGROWN ESCOBAR ENEMY JOINS FIGHT

Chapter 12 of a continuing serial

Officially, the U.S.  Embassy in Bogota was silent on the sudden emergence in early 1993 of Los Pepes ( People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar ), a vigilante group apparently dedicated to violent retribution against the fugitive drug lord. 

The gang in the steel vault on the fifth floor of the embassy - Ambassador Morris Busby, CIA Station Chief Bill Wagner, and the Drug Enforcement Administration country chief, Joe Toft - was not displeased.  Nor were the DEA agents, Delta Force operators and Centra Spike electronic surveillance experts at the Search Bloc headquarters outside Medellin. 

And why would they be? What could be better than a homegrown vigilante movement against Public Enemy No.  1? All along, Escobar's official pursuers in the Search Bloc had fought at a disadvantage.  The unit's Colombian commander, Police Col.  Hugo Martinez, was suspected of employing vicious tactics in his hunt.  But compared with Escobar, who kidnapped and murdered the sons and daughters of his enemies, who set off bombs in public places filled with children, the Search Bloc had been a model of decorum. 

The Search Bloc was, of course, limited to seeking out wanted criminals, while Escobar routinely targeted innocents.  The unit had to take a judge along on every raid, and if the judge did not like the way the Bloc members conducted themselves, he could file human-rights abuse charges - certain to be encouraged by Escobar's many well-paid allies in the Bogota bureaucracy. 

When things got too hot for Escobar or his associates, they had always been able to wriggle out by arranging to surrender and, sheltered by a small army of lawyers, work a deal.  In short, Escobar had long hidden behind the law and his "rights."

In an interview he gave while hiding the ious September, Escobar had said: "In jail or on the street, they have to respect my rights." To his pursuers, of course, this afforded him an enormous advantage, which made the sudden appearance of Los Pepes tremendously satisfying to the Search Bloc. 

The governments of Colombia and the United States might deplore terrorism, but there was no doubt about its effectiveness.  Terror was Escobar's strongest weapon.  Why not turn it against him?

The drug boss certainly didn't lack for bitter enemies, but his foes had little in common.  They ranged from some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Bogota to rival street thugs in Medellin and Cali.  What if someone were to give them a push - some organization, some money, some useful intelligence, some training, planning and leadership?

Los Pepes were so perfect they were .  .  .  well, too perfect. 

One of the men involved with Los Pepes, a Medellin drug trafficker and pilot who used the code name "Rubin," said he was recruited as an informant by DEA agent Javier Pena. 

"I met with Javier in October 1992 in Medellin," said Rubin, who asked that his real name not be used.  "He explained that the idea was to expand the informants net for the Search Bloc, and wanted me to help."

Pena said he remembered Rubin's working closely with the Search Bloc as an informant, but he did not recruit him or offer to get him a visa to the United States - as Rubin had claimed. 

"He was wanted in the United States," the agent said. 

Rubin said that in Medellin he met with a man who was known as Don Berna, a former hit man for the Galleano family.  The Galleanos had been major drug traffickers in Escobar's organization until the drug boss murdered the two brothers who led the family. 

Rubin said Don Berna was one of the leaders of Los Pepes, which he said consisted of 12 men "and three jeeps" who worked with Col.  Martinez's men.  In the fall of 1992, this group began to make associates and family members of Escobar's an offer they dared not refuse. 

"We would offer people money, supplied by the DEA, in return for their cooperation," Rubin said.  "They could accept the money and help us, or the Los Pepes would return and kill them.  It was that simple.  Either help us or you will become a target.  That's how we developed the information that led us to Pablo."

Pena said that DEA money was offered to the Search Bloc to pay informants, and that the money might have been distributed through Rubin and the others, who were identified as "informants."

The activities of Rubin, Don Berna, and others in their group were known to Delta operators and DEA agents who worked in Medellin, all of whom ultimately reported to Wagner, the CIA station chief, at the embassy in Bogota.  In an interview for this story, Wagner said he did not remember Los Pepes. 

One of Wagner's goals in Colombia was to establish a link between cocaine trafficking and Colombia's dominant guerrilla group, FARC - links that would justify pushing antidrug work from the realm of law enforcement into the realm of war.  That would unleash against men like Pablo Escobar the kinds of forces and About Drug Test typically directed against communist insurgencies and outlaw states.  He had top-level allies in this effort.  Gen.  Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was advised by President George Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney that combating drugs would be "a No.  1 priority" of their administration. 

This was the bigger picture Wagner had in mind when he arrived in Colombia in January 1991, and Escobar's escape a year later had hastened the transition.  Now the CIA station chief had the kinds of About Drug Test in Colombia needed to wage war against the narcos, and for him the hunt had become very nearly a full-time job. 

After the frustrations of the first six months, there was a strategy shift.  If Escobar stood atop an organizational mountain that consisted of his family, financial associates, sicarios and lawyers, then perhaps the only way to get him was to first take down the mountain.  During the late fall and early winter of 1992-93, the effort against Escobar began targeting more aggressively his worldwide financial empire. 

Sickened by the carnage of the January 1993 bookstore bombing, Wagner had personally taken charge of the agency's efforts to undermine Escobar's bombing campaign.  Just days before the bombing, his agents by chance had made a connection with a man involved with Escobar's bomb squads.  Wagner decided to work the man himself, employing all his spy-craft to protect the source from discovery. 

He met with the man just days after the bookstore blast, and about once a week after that.  He learned that the bookstore bomb had originally been planned for the Ministry of Justice, but when the car bombers discovered that security was too tight there, they panicked, parked the car nearby, and ran.  Wagner also began learning the names of the men running Escobar's bombing campaign. 

The bookstore blast had just about erased what was left of Escobar's popularity outside Medellin.  Days later, the government, responding to public outrage, declared him Public Enemy No.  1, and offered the unprecedented reward of five billion pesos ( $6.5 million ) for information leading to his capture. 

The forces pursuing Escobar had long been united in their desire to get him before he was able to negotiate another comfortable "surrender" deal.  Search Bloc and government correspondence was always careful to record that the desire was to "capture" Escobar, but privately they said they did not expect to take him alive. 

Inside Search Bloc headquarters in Medellin, DEA agent Pena detected a distinct shift in mood after the bookstore bombing.  Just after the blast, Pena encountered a group of Martinez's top men emerging from a meeting with the colonel. 

"Things have changed now," they told Pena. 

The hunt for Escobar, already bloody and terrible, was about to take an even darker turn.  In the ious months, Los Pepes had operated quietly, but in late January a decision was made - Rubin said he thought it was a mistake - to begin publicizing its actions.  Bodies of Escobar's associates began turning up all over Medellin and Bogota, most with signs around their necks advertising the vigilante group. 

Sometimes they were victims of Los Pepes; sometimes they were killed by the Search Bloc.  Among the dead were some of the names Wagner had uncovered with his mole.  Whenever the Search Bloc was publicly responsible, the reports read: "Killed in a gun battle with Colombian police."