Pablo and Garcia weren’t the only ones stealing cars in Medellin, which led to an extension of his operation. The pair took to building race cars, with Pablo competing in local events. They built up a collection of stolen engine parts which they would sell off bit by bit. Once back on the street, Pablo and his cousin Gustavo went right back to stealing cars.
Here he learned about how to move into bigger time criminal activity, including kidnapping and drug trafficking. He ended up spending several months in La Ladera Jail, which was to him, a positive life experience. In his late teens, Pablo got caught in the act of stealing one of these cars. All that Pablo had to do was turn up at the addresses and drive the cars away. He established a contact with a Renault car dealer who would provide him with copies of the keys to the cars that he had just sold, along with the addresses of the buyers. Within a few months, Pablo became bored with this and moved on to bigger – and easier – things. One would ride the bike and act as the get away rider while the other stormed the business. It all happened in about 30 seconds.Īfter a few successful robberies, Pablo recruited his cousin to join him. He would then ride to the target business on his motorbike, slip a balaclava over his head and rush the business with a knife or gun in hand, demand the money and then get out of there. He started by scoping out potential targets.
Pablo decided that the route to quick cash lay in commercial business robbery. Pablo Escobar (as a child on left) – Colombian Drug DealerĪccording to legend, Pablo’s foray into crime began with him stealing headstones from the local cemetery, sandblasting the names from them and then reselling them. Now with a means of fast escape, he began planning how to make money more easily than repairing bicycles for a pittance. With the money that he made from this enterprise, he purchased himself a Lambretta motorcycle. He would prowl the streets and the local dump in search of discarded bicycle parts and then use them to fix bikes for cheap. A couple of months before reaching his seventeenth birthday, he dropped out of school, bored with the straight-laced routine and keen to make his own way in the world.Īfter quitting school, the enterprising Pablo started up a little bicycle repair shop. He had a round face and wore a slight mustache. The Young Thugīy the age of sixteen Pablo had developed into a plump, short youth, standing at just over five foot, six inches. Part of this counterculture movement involved experimentation with drugs, leading the thirteen-year-old future drug kingpin to develop an addiction to marijuana which would never leave him. Pablo became part of a youth culture movement known as Nadaismo which encouraged young people to thumb their noses at the established order, disobey their parents and write their own rules. By the time he was in his early teens, Pablo was attending street rallies and participating in such activities as throwing rocks at the police. Many of his teachers were involved in social causes, especially the struggle for class equality and they became powerful influences on the boy. Although tending toward the chubby side, thanks to his love of fast food, he was talented in all ball sports, with a special love for soccer. Through her work at the school, Hermilda soon become a popular and well-respected member of the community.Īt school, Pablo proved himself to be an able and quick-witted student. Abel sold the farm and took up a job as a neighbourhood watchman. The violence that was part and parcel of enforcing the narcotics trade was all around.īefore Pablo started school, the family moved to Envigado, a small village just out of Medellin, so that Hermilda could establish an elementary school there. Although not everyone directly participated in the drug business, they all had a powerful incentive in the protection of those that did. Pablo, the second of seven children, was raised in a middle-class environment in a community that was fuelled by the cocaine and marijuana trade. The city of Medellín, where Escobar grew up and began his criminal career.