After El Mencho: Why Pablo Escobar’s Shadow Still Looms Over The Global Drug Trade

The murder of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho,” the elusive leader of Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), has once again raised a familiar question: does eliminating a drug kingpin weaken the global narcotics trade, or merely reshape it?

More than three decades ago, Colombia confronted the same moment when Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, the world’s most infamous cocaine baron, was killed on a Medellín rooftop in December 1993. His death marked the end of an era of spectacular narco-violence. Yet it did not end cocaine trafficking. Instead, it fragmented and evolved.

As authorities and analysts assess what El Mencho’s demise could mean for Mexico and beyond, Escobar’s life offers a sobering historical parallel.

Few criminals in modern history have left a mark as deep and complex as Pablo Escobar. To some in Colombia’s poorest neighborhoods, he was a benefactor who built homes and soccer fields. To governments around the world, he was the embodiment of narco-terrorism, an architect of bombings, assassinations, and institutional collapse.

His rise from petty criminal to head of the Medellín Cartel reshaped Colombia, fueled America’s drug crisis, and transformed global narcotics enforcement.

Early Life and the Making of a Cartel Boss

Born on December 1, 1949, in Rionegro, Colombia, and raised in Medellín, Escobar grew up in a modest household. In the 1970s, as Colombia became a hub for contraband trade, he moved from small-time schemes, selling counterfeit lottery tickets and stolen goods, into cocaine trafficking.

The timing was critical. Demand for cocaine in the United States was soaring. Escobar recognized the scale of the opportunity and built a vertically integrated operation controlling production, transportation, and distribution.

By the 1980s, the Medellín Cartel was reportedly smuggling 70 to 80 tons of cocaine into the U.S. each month. Escobar’s fortune ballooned to an estimated $25 billion. His wealth placed him on Forbes’ billionaire list and made him one of the most powerful non-state actors in the Western Hemisphere.

Like some modern cartel leaders, Escobar paired brutality with populism. In Medellín’s poorest barrios, he funded housing and infrastructure projects under the banner “Medellín sin tugurios.” In areas long neglected by the state, his philanthropy built loyalty, and silence.

Politics, Extradition, and Terror

Escobar’s ambitions extended beyond crime. In 1982, he won election as an alternate member of Colombia’s Congress. His political career ended swiftly when journalists exposed his criminal past. His expulsion in 1984 marked a turning point.

That same year, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, an outspoken critic, was assassinated on Escobar’s orders. Colombia entered one of the bloodiest chapters in its history.

The core of Escobar’s political battle was extradition. The United States, under President Ronald Reagan, sought to try traffickers in American courts. Escobar fiercely resisted, declaring he would rather die in Colombia than face a U.S. prison.

To block extradition, he unleashed a campaign of terror: car bombs, kidnappings, and targeted assassinations. The 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203, which killed 107 people, and the bombing of Colombia’s security agency headquarters demonstrated the scale of his violence. The term “narco-terrorism” entered global vocabulary.

Under immense pressure, Colombia’s 1991 constitution banned extradition of nationals. Escobar surrendered soon after, but on his own terms.

Escape, and the End

Escobar’s imprisonment in “La Catedral” was unlike any other. The luxury facility he designed included a soccer field and private suites. From inside, he continued to manage cartel operations.

When authorities attempted to transfer him to a conventional prison in 1992, he escaped. The manhunt that followed involved Colombian forces, U.S. intelligence, and rival vigilantes known as Los Pepes.

On December 2, 1993, Escobar was tracked to a Medellín neighborhood and killed during a rooftop shootout. Whether he died from police fire or by his own hand remains debated.

His death shattered the Medellín Cartel. But cocaine trafficking did not disappear. It shifted to the Cali Cartel and later to more decentralized, networked organizations. Violence subsided from its peak but never vanished.

If Escobar’s life offers a lesson, it is this: removing a kingpin can weaken a cartel’s centralized power, but it rarely addresses the economic ecosystem sustaining it, global demand, poverty, corruption, and weak institutions.

El Mencho’s CJNG rose in a post-Escobar, post-Medellín world, one shaped by fragmentation, militarized enforcement, and transnational supply chains. Where Escobar ran a vertically integrated empire, modern cartels operate as flexible networks.

Escobar’s empire also intensified the U.S.-led War on Drugs, prompting billions in security assistance and deeper DEA involvement in Latin America. Yet critics argue the strategy displaced rather than dismantled trafficking routes, contributing to cycles of violence from Colombia to Mexico and Central America.

In Colombia, Escobar remains a deeply polarizing figure. Many remember the bombings, assassinations, and years of trauma. Others, particularly in marginalized neighborhoods, recall the homes he built.

But history has largely settled on one conclusion: Escobar’s philanthropy could not outweigh the devastation wrought by his empire.

As Mexico confronts the implications of El Mencho’s death, Escobar’s story stands as both caution and context. The fall of a drug lord makes headlines. The systems that produce them endure far longer.