Disappearing Act

Threatened with less spacious digs, drug lord Escobar heads for the hills

Without doubt, he was the most pampered prisoner in all Colombia. Drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellin cocaine cartel who surrendered 13 months ago in exchange for a promise of no extradition to the U.S., was locked up in a suite in a luxurious prison of his own design in his hometown of Envigado. By most accounts, Escobar continued to run his billion-dollar business from behind the walls. So when Colombia's director of prisons and a deputy minister of justice entered the jail last week to tell Escobar he was being transferred to a harsher military prison, the...

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