This book was a birthday gift from KHG. It focuses on a 16-month effort to capture (though the goal turned simply to killing, once they figured out imprisonment was hopeless) drug kingpin Pablo Escobar; the effort succeeded in December 1993. The book also gave lots of background information about Escobar's rise to power in Colombia.The story simply feels unbelievable - but apparently it all happened.
It seems impossible that one criminal (admittedly with a well-paid, loyal organization) could exert such control over an entire country. Seems he had a pretty simple system in dealing with people - (a) they could do what he wanted and be paid handsomely, or (b) they would be killed. Also seems he left no doubt that he would enforce the system - stunning numbers of murders of judges, police, anybody in the way. Accordingly, huge numbers of folks selected (a). The organizational reach was unbelievable - politicians, judges, police. He had intelligence about almost everything that was going on.
Particularly telling was his negotiated "surrender" leading to "imprisonment" in a luxe facility he built for himself (before eventually escaping by slipping through a cordon of hundreds of soldiers who somehow "didn't see" him). What a deal.
There was a Harrison Ford movie some years ago based on some popular novel where the story line was built around an Escobar figure. I thought it was pretty hyped up. I was wrong, the real-life guy had far more money and influence.
All this is a bit unsettling thinking of the drug violence in Mexico and elsewhere; also the incredible challenge of running honest politics in countries with this kind of heritage. (But that might get me started on U.S. politics.)
But you know what? There is some room for optimism. There were some honest folks that took PE down, and I'm guessing that took courage in quantities most of us couldn't even imagine, and very few are ever called on to show.
Good book.
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