Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden

The Book & the Video Documentary

Mark Bowden can tell an exciting story about as well as any writer at work today. Killing Pablo is further proof. It describes the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, a notorious Colombian drug lord who became one of the narcotic trade's first billionaires. Pablo--Bowden refers to him by his first name throughout the book--started out as a petty thief and wound up running a massive smuggling empire. At his height in the 1980s, he owned fleets of boats and planes, plus 19 separate residences in Medellin, each with its own helipad. Violence marked everything he did: "He wasn't an entrepreneur, and he wasn't even an especially talented businessman. He was just ruthless." He bought off police, politicians, and judges throughout his country, and killed many others who wouldn't cooperate. The Colombian government tried to capture him, but without much luck; he evaded them time after time. "Now and then the police achieved enough surprise to catch him, literally, with his pants down. In [1988], about one thousand national police raided one of his mansions," writes Bowden. "Pablo fled in his underwear, avoiding the police cordon on foot." He got away, again, but his days were numbered. He was making powerful enemies in both Colombia and the United States. The final straw probably came when Pablo's men murdered a popular politician and, three months later, planted a bomb on a plane, killing 110 people, including two Americans.

America's deadly pursuit of Manuel Noriega and Pablo Escobar -- Centra Spike arrived in Bogotá, Colombia, with the mission to offer training and intelligence-gathering technology to the Colombian police in their battle against the Medellín cocaine cartel. Centra Spike's "primary specialty," writes Mark Bowden in his new book "Killing Pablo," "was finding people."

The Book

Amazon

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw

The Video

Experience the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar with "Killing Pablo", an original production from The Philadelphia Inquirer and CNN, and companion to the Mark Bowden book. Go where it all happened, as secret American military forces, the CIA, DEA, and Colombian National Police commandos tracked Pablo through the streets and countryside of Colombia. See the essential role that members of a shadowy vigilante group played in the hunt. What did America know about them? Includes bonus DEA and CIA footage of Pablo's lavishly appointed estates and mountaintop "prison". About the Actor From Knight Ridder Video, producers of "Black Hawk Down: The Official Documentary", companion to the Mark Bowden book of the same name.