More than thirty years after Pablo Escobar’s death, there are more than a dozen of his long list of hitmen still alive. In the heyday of the Medellin cartel, in the 1980s and early 1990s, Escobar used these young men to maintain his dominance in a context of social violence that destroyed an entire generation.
While the Medellin cartel had several key figureheads, it was the group’s hitmen who carried out its dirty work in the streets. Pablo Escobar’s hitmen were known by their aliases: Popeye, Arete, La Quica, Jhon Lada, Negro Pabón or Chacho Chino, were at varying times part of the entity. While many hitmen were killed while conducting the cartel’s operations, others remained alive and the authorities lost track of them.
The figure of the hitman in Pablo Escobar’s Colombia
At the core of the Medellin cartel were the “sicarios,” hired killers who operated with extreme violence under Escobar’s orders. Indeed, the word “hitman” took on its full meaning during this particularly dark era in Colombia’s history.
Despite the fall of the cartel and the death of its leader in 1993, some of these ‘sicarios’ are still alive. They leave behind a trail of stories of crime, redemption and incomplete justice. Some are serving sentences in Colombia or abroad, while others assumed new identities before continuing to operate in the criminal underworld.
Their stories reflect how drug trafficking and violence have mutated in Colombia, while also demonstrating their ability to adapt to contemporary realities. Today, criminal structures such as The Office of Envigado (La Oficina de Envigado) and other gangs continue to engage in drug trafficking, extortion and contract killings in various regions of Colombia.
Escobar’s shadow persists in the narrative of these organizations, which operate with the same cruelty and efficiency as yesteryear, but under a more sophisticated and less visible guise. Despite the authorities’ efforts to dismantle these networks, the power and influence of Escobar’s former hitmen show that the legacy of the Medellin Cartel has not been completely eradicated. In Colombia, the road to justice continues to be long and tortuous.
Carlos Mario Alzate Urquijo, alias “Arete”
While some sicarios have attempted to reintegrate into society, others continue to run criminal operations, perpetuating a culture of violence that has scarred entire generations. Although the days of large cartels like the Medellin cartel are gone, power dynamics and the use of hired assassins are still a palpable reality in Colombia.
Carlos Mario Alzate Urquijo, known by his alias of Arete, was one of Escobar’s closest collaborators. Becoming Escobar’s shadow, Arete advanced within the organization, assuming responsibility for various illegal operations such as attacks against important institutions. Among his most well-known activities was his attack on the building of Colombia’s former intelligence services, as well as his plan to blow up an Avianca airplane mid-flight.
After his surrender to the authorities and subsequent imprisonment in Colombia’s Itagui and La Picota prisons, Arete was released at the end of 2001. Due to unresolved disputes with another gang, he was attacked by a hitman and left him on the verge of death. As a result, he received protection from the Colombian State and was exiled.
Arete was reportedly sent to Spain with his family and has been living there ever since. However, according to local media in Colombia, the Prosecutor’s Office is now trying to establish exactly where he is, so that he can be summoned to answer for his alleged responsibility for the attack on the Avianca plane.
Dandenis Muñoz Mosquera, alias “La Quica”
Dandenis Muñoz Mosquera, known as La Quica (or La Quica), was the son of a Christian pastor and policeman. He had 14 siblings, at least two of whom were also part of Escobar’s hit squad. La Quica lived in the northern neighborhoods of Medellin, where most young men who were recruited by the cartel came from. According to statements made by his mother in 2010, five of his brothers were killed during a period of social violence in Medellin, some of them by the police.
In 1991, La Quica fled to the United States due to not feeling safe in Colombia. There, he continued to commit crimes until he was arrested and sentenced to six years for carrying false documents.
La Quica is the only hitman who has been convicted for the bombing of the Avianca plane, which killed two American citizens. While he has been held responsible in the U.S. for the death of the Americans on the Avianca plane, in Colombia there are no records against him, despite him also having been accused of participating in the killing of dozens of police officers and members of the security forces.
In 2013, La Kika spoke on W Radio, a Colombian media outlet, claiming that he had never met Pablo Escobar, much less worked for him, and that he had never killed anyone.
La Quica has now been incarcerated for more than 30 years in the U.S.. Having been sentenced to 10 life sentences, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life. Despite all this, there is still no convincing evidence of his participation in the bombing of the Avianca airliner that killed 110 people in 1989.
His defense lawyer says that La Quica is a “false positive” and was used as a scapegoat by the FBI in its fight against the Medellin cartel in the 1990s.
Luis Carlos Aguilar, alias “El mugre”
El Mugre is first mentioned in police reports in 1988, on account of being linked to the purchase of a plane to transport cocaine for Escobar’s criminal network. However, it is believed he was already part of the Medellin Cartel long before that and was one of Escobar’s most trusted men.
According to “Popeye,” one of Escobar’s best-known hitmen who died of illness in 2020 after a long prison sentence, El Mugre was Escobar’s soccer partner at Hacienda Napoles. Like most of the hitmen, Popeye came from a low-income family and was attracted to Escobar by the rewards the drug lord offered in exchange for killing police officers.
El Mugre was incarcerated in the prison popularly known as “The Cathedral”, in which Escobar was also held for some time. It is assumed that El Mugre helped plan Escobar’s escape, an affair that embarrassed the entire country and exposed the deficiencies of the Colombian justice system at the time.
In 1992, El Mugre turned himself in to avoid being murdered by his rivals in the underworld. He served a nine-year sentence until he was paroled to disappear completely. Since then, he has lived in hiding, although Popeye previously claimed that Aguilar was living in Spain and had become a religious pastor after losing a daughter.
Hitmen: reminders of Colombia’s dark and criminal past
In addition to these hitmen, some other individuals previously associated with the Medellin cartel are also still alive. These include former associates such as Carlos Ledher and the Ochoa brothers. Roberto Escobar, alias “The Stuffed Animal”, is also still alive. In addition to Pablo Escobar’s brother, Roberto was the head of the hitmen between 1987 and 1988.
The whereabouts of other individuals, such as Luis Fernando Zabala, alias Cuco, and Eugenio Leon Garcia, known in the underworld as El Taxista, remains unknown and Colombian authorities continue to search for them.
In Colombia, the ghosts of the past still lurk, reminding us that the scars left by drug trafficking are far from healed. In addition to the damage caused to individuals, the culture of drug trafficking still permeates Colombian society. Nevertheless, the country continues trying to rid itself of this scourge from the past.