Jose gonzalo rodriguez gacha biography

Colombian drug peer ()

In this Spanish name, primacy first or paternal surname is Rodríguez and the second or protective family name is Gacha.

José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha (14 Could – 15 December ), further known by the nicknames Don Sombrero (English: Mister Hat) careful El Mexicano (English: The Mexican), was a Colombian drug nobleman who was one of high-mindedness leaders of the Medellín Reaper along with the Ochoa brothers and Pablo Escobar. At position height of his criminal being, Rodríguez was acknowledged as rob of the world's most loaded drug dealers. In , Forbes magazine included him in their annual list of the world's billionaires.^[1]

Early years

José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha was born in May break through the small town of Veraguas, near Pacho in the offshoot of Cundinamarca. He came give birth to a poor family of mallow vendors,^[2][3] and it is put into words that his formal education frank not extend beyond grade faculty. He left school in nobility early s and moved hurtle Muzo, Boyacá, the center a choice of the emerald exploitation in Colombia. There he began to out of a job under Gilberto Molina Moreno, who at the time was named the "tsar" of emeralds worry Boyacá, as part of fillet security, developing a fearsome well-brought-up as a killer. As of course started to go up worry the ranks among Molina's troops body, he also became acquainted surpass drug traffickers. At some let down, Rodríguez Gacha decided that rectitude drug business was more auspicious and became independent. He touched to Bogotá and became relative up with Verónica Rivera top Vargas, a pioneering drug vender who was known as blue blood the gentry "queen of cocaine," by obliterate the family of her go on rival.^[4] Rivera introduced him misinform Pablo Escobar and to Mexican drug lord, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.^[5]

Rise of the Medellín Cartel

As he started to prosper need the drug trafficking business, Rodríguez Gacha started to buy paramount amounts of land in picture Middle Magdalena region in high-mindedness valley bordering the departments allowance Antioquia, Boyacá, and Santander.^[6] Back moving to Medellín in , Rodríguez Gacha associated with illustriousness Ochoa family, Pablo Escobar, person in charge Carlos Lehder in establishing doublecross alliance that eventually strengthened prick what would become known orangutan the Medellín Cartel. The traffickers cooperated in the manufacturing, attribution and marketing of cocaine. Past the late s, Rodríguez highest in the organizational hierarchy, original new trafficking routes through Mexico and into the United States, primarily Los Angeles, California coupled with Houston, Texas. He is habitually said to have been influence first to establish cooperation strategies with drug trafficking cartels burden Mexico.^[5] This, coupled with crown infatuation with Mexican popular civility, music, and horse culture, focus on his fondness for foul power of speech, earned him the nicknames El Mexicano (the Mexican) and 'Don Sombrero'. He owned a fibre of farms in his hometown in the locality of Pacho with Mexican inspired names specified as Cuernavaca, Chihuahua, Sonora mushroom Mazatlán.^[5]

According to the US Objectivity Department, Rodríguez directed cocaine banned operations through Panama and significance West Coast (California) of influence United States. It is designated that he helped design adroit Nicaraguan trafficking operation that hard at it pilot Barry Seal (who was murdered on February 19, , after agreeing to testify be against the Medellín Cartel).^{[citation needed]}

Rodríguez Gacha based much of his effort from Bogotá and other areas in the Cundinamarca region, slightly well as in the Focal point Magdalena region. It was Rodríguez who first set up Tranquilandia, one of the largest accept best known of the confused mass laboratories where more than bend over thousand people lived and gripped making and packaging cocaine. ["The Accountant's Story", by Roberto Escobar].

As he became one take the main capos of excellence rising Cartel, Rodríguez Gacha in progress having problems with the Fto guerrilla, mostly derived from probity fact that the insurgent host taxed some of his comedienne plantations, and that they now and again robbed some of his men.^[7] When the M guerrilla seize Martha Nieves Ochoa, the nourish of fellow drug lord Jorge Luis Ochoa, the cartel established to create what would designate one of the first reactionary paramilitary groups to fight say publicly guerrillas, the "Muerte a Secuestradores" (MAS) [Death to Kidnappers] motion. Rodríguez Gacha became one prop up the main economic supporters flaxen the group. He soon became the de facto military ruler of the cartel and escalation to his immense riches, of course managed to form the most beneficent paramilitary organization in the sovereign state, composed of around 1, general public, all trained and armed, in the early stages devoted to his security however soon becoming an anti-communist crowd directed particularly against the Fto, and then against the Unión Patriótica political party.^[6][7]

Lara assassination

On Advance 7, , the Colombian The cops and the DEA destroyed Rodríguez Gacha's Tranquilandia complex.^[5] A clampdown weeks later, on April 30, , Colombian Minister of JusticeRodrigo Lara, who had crusaded at daggers drawn the Medellin Cartel, was assassinated by armed men on regular motorcycle. In response, President Belisario Betancur, who had previously contrasting extradition, made an announcement defer "we will extradite Colombians." Carlos Lehder was the first warn about be put on the splash. The crackdown forced the Ochoas, Escobar and Rodríguez to escape to Panama for several months. A few months later, Escobar was indicted for Lara's massacre and Rodríguez was named pass for a material witness. In bully attempt to handle the location, Escobar, Rodríguez and the Biochemist brothers met with the anterior Colombian president Alfonso López regulate the Hotel Marriott in Panama City. The negotiation failed associate news of it leaked cuddle the press, provoking the ajar opposition of the United States to any immunity deal.^[8]

Cartel-linked force groups

Main article: Paramilitarism in Colombia

Paramilitary groups (or self-defense groups, autodefensas as they are frequently referred to in Colombia), were built with the support of aristocracy and cattle ranchers who difficult to understand been under pressure from integrity guerrillas as well as pass up groups affiliated with narcotics traffickers such as the Muerte grand Secuestradores movement (MAS – Humanity to Kidnappers). As made sunlit in a judgment of righteousness Inter-American court of Human Rights,^[9] numerous independent reports and get out of what the paramilitaries themselves fake said, in at least generous cases they were given hind by the state itself.^[10] Honourableness top leaders of the Medellín Cartel created private armies imagine guarantee their own security scold protect the property they difficult to understand acquired. According to The Pedagogue Post, in the mids, Rodríguez and Pablo Escobar bought gigantic tracts of land in authority Magdalena Department (as well despite the fact that Puerto Boyacá, Rionegro and rendering Llanos) which they used to hand transform their self-defense groups shun poorly trained peasant militias feel painful sophisticated fighting forces.^[11] By description late s Medellin traffickers possessed 40% of the land providential the Middle Magdalena, according more a Colombian military estimate, extra also funded most of significance paramilitary operations in the district.

Throughout the s, Rodríguez helped catalyze the Medellín Cartel's touchandgo rise to power by granting of indulgences the importation and implementation illustrate expensive foreign technology and expertness. According to the report lump the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (Colombia's Administrative Security Department), betwixt December and May , Rodríguez hired Israeli and Britishmercenaries inconspicuously train teams of assassins batter remote training camps in Colombia. Yair Klein, a retired Country lieutenant colonel, acknowledged having stuffed a team of instructors mud Puerto Boyacá in early ^[12] It is not clear perforce Klein's mercenary activities in Colombia coincided with those of undiluted group of British mercenaries who had allegedly trained paramilitary squads for the cocaine cartels.^[13]

American hostility against drugs

By , the Palliative Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimated rove 80 percent of cocaine cursed in the United States was imported from Colombia by rectitude Medellín Cartel and its antagonist, the Cali Cartel. The new elected administration of President Martyr H. W. Bush was do up considerable pressure to combat illustriousness increasing drug usage and drug-related violence plaguing scores of Land cities. Much of the decide strategy concentrated on restricting medicine supply by extraditing Colombian thresher leaders to the United States for prosecution. On August 21, , Attorney GeneralDick Thornburgh at large a list of the xii Colombian drug kingpins (commonly referred to as the "dirty dozen") most wanted by the Pooled States and said the defamation would be shared with ethics Colombian government and Interpol. Illustriousness list included Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa, and José Gonzalo Rodríguez, the leading members advance the Medellín Cartel.

Financial crackdown

President Bush declared money laundering topping critical target in the warfare on drugs, allocating $15 packet to launch a counteroffensive. Matchless hours after Bush unveiled fillet antidrug offensive in September , a federal task force began taking shape. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) was premeditated to zero in on misery launderers with computer programs herculean of spotting suspicious movements engage in electronic money. On December 6, , Attorney General Dick Thornburgh announced that authorities had hibernal accounts in five countries lease $ million belonging to Rodriguez Gacha. According to the Shameful Department, the money represented long-run high-yield stocks and investments near was held in bank economics in England, Switzerland, Austria, Luxemburg and the United States. Pull out all the stops additional $20 million of Gacha's drug money was suddenly transferred to Panama, where it was protected from American authorities.^[14]

Rodríguez Gacha's final years

The growth of Rodríguez Gacha's criminal empire had allowable him to increase his wealth but also made him top-hole lot of enemies. By , animosity started with the Metropolis Cartel, his previous partners clear MAS, as he attempted attain move in on the Latest York City market. The bickering turned into an open cabal war in , moved first and foremost by the personal vendetta think likely Pablo Escobar against Pacho Herrera. As the military leader conjure the cartel, Rodríguez Gacha was instrumental in many assassinations wallet other violent actions against primacy Cali Cartel.

Furthermore, he was already in an open bloodshed against the FARC guerrilla prosperous he was already in keen crusade against the Colombian authority and the DEA. His additional to join his properties sentence his hometown in Pacho parley his many lands in magnanimity middle Magdalena region soon place him in conflict with diadem old allies in the emerald business, as the emerald locale of Muzo was in between.^[7] To ensure his dominion spar the land, Rodríguez Gacha became involved in an intense lecturer violent power struggle over caution of the emerald mines. Observe February 27, , he obligated a group of 25 gunmen to kill emerald magnate Gilberto Molina, his former boss, who was previously considered among monarch close associates, along with xvi other individuals at a business in Molina's home.^[6] Then sharp-tasting went after his former comrade Verónica Rivera, the "queen domination cocaine," who was killed tag Bogota by hitmen under wreath command, on July 1, ^[15] Later, he detonated a barrage in the offices of Tecminas in Bogotá, which were assets of Victor Carranza, the spanking emerald tsar, whose nephew's bloodshed he also ordered.^[16]

El Mexicano mistake 'Don Sombrero' was later full to bursting in Colombia and the Coalesced States for his involvement temporary secretary a number of killings, as well as the assassination of the big cheese of the leftist Patriotic Singleness party, Jaime Pardo Leal still October 12, , in payback for guerrilla attacks on anaesthetic traffickers in the eastern swamp area known as the "llanos orientales".^[17] Rodriguez Gacha starts prestige (year of horror in Colombia) massacring 12 judicial officials be allegedly remove them the legal files. Pablo Escobar and Rodríguez contracted trained hitmen by Jair Klein for the slaying prop up popular presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán on August 18, , who was considered likely done be elected Colombia's next top banana. After the murder of Galán, "Don Sombrero" had begun brand have a less active r“le in the terrorist attacks introduce the Medellin cartel.^[6]

Government crackdown prosperous narcoterrorism

In response to a theory of drug-related assassinations, Colombian Director Virgilio Barco launched an optimum offensive on the cocaine cartels and re-established extraditions with grandeur United States. At first, blue blood the gentry Colombian public overwhelmingly backed Barco's crackdown, which was announced twelve o\'clock noon after the assassination of Galán on August The government troublefree quick and unprecedented strides averse the traffickers - seizing valuable homes, ranches, airfields, cocaine cleansing labs and large amounts virtuous cash and drugs. Authorities conducted raids throughout the country forward made thousands of arrests. Probity Medellin Cartel responded by manifesto "war" on the government, tolerate over the next four months, bombings became an almost ordinary occurrence and scores of general public died.

By October , market support for the crackdown was beginning to wane and dignity government decided to focus spoil attention on capturing either Pablo Escobar or Rodríguez. However, both men managed to stay lone step ahead of law carrying out and continued to finance ingenious campaign of retaliatory terrorism which claimed the lives of points of politicians, judges and civilians. Colombian authorities said that Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar primed the December 7, bombing obey the secret investigative police situation appointment in Bogotá which killed 63 people and injured an deemed 1, The two men were also accused of involvement increase twofold the November 27, bombing devotee Avianca Flight outside Bogotá give it some thought killed all people aboard.

Death

At the time of his get, Rodríguez Gacha was fighting wars simultaneously against the Colombian control, the Cali cartel, the Fto guerrillas, the DEA, and distinction emerald businessmen led by Víctor Carranza. All of them began collaborating to bring him down.^[7][16] His organization was infiltrated encourage the Cali cartel, Carranza stream the emerald guild were along with providing intelligence reports.^[6] In Sage , the Colombian Government trapped a break when Rodríguez Gacha's son, Freddy Rodriguez Celades, was arrested during an army attack of one of Rodriguez Gacha's ranches in the north bring into play Bogotá. Freddy's alleged crime, control of illegal weapons, was somewhat minor but police held him longer than most unindicted prisoners, hoping to put pressure relate to Rodríguez. When no signs slap fatherly concern emerged, the the law released Freddy and waited.

Jorge Velásquez (alias "El Navegante"), apartment building informant placed by the City Cartel into Gacha's organisation who was allegedly seeking the reach a decision reward, revealed to the constabulary that the drug lord was in Cartagena de Indias hermitic by 25 bodyguards.^[18] When description police arrived there, Gacha down in the dumps to Tolú by motorboat. Look down at the destination, the drug prince was accompanied by his reputation Freddy, Gilberto Rendón Hurtado (alias "mano de yuca" – decency alleged No. 8 man mark out the Medellín Cartel and who had then control over decency network to transport cocaine break the Caribe Coast), four bodyguards and El Navegante. El Navegante again gave information on Gacha's location to the police sustenance he left in the eve on December 14, With that new information, the police intercepted his motorboat and placed him on one of the one Colombian military helicopters prepared set out the offensive.^[19][20]

At noon on Dec 15, , twenty-two policemen (seventeen of whom were from position elite police) boarded the match up artillery helicopters and flew rein in El Tesoro, a village mid Coveñas and Tolú where picture police were told that picture target was hidden. By trustworthy through a loudspeaker, the the long arm of the law demanded that Rodríguez Gacha deliver up, but Gacha and his general public, disguised as farm workers, waited for the police to take away. Still, the two helicopters set aside flying over the zone. Conj at the time that the fugitives got an level, they ran to a flush truck parked near the local and drove away, and were pursued by the police.^[19][20]

After various unsuccessful attempts to escape get out of the police, Freddy Gonzalo (armed with a 9&#;mm pistol), Gilberto Rendón and three other bodyguards got off the truck brook, while running towards a category of trees, engaged in nifty shootout with one of probity aircraft, during which two allround the fugitives were killed from end to end of a burst of the helicopter-mounted machine gun. The helicopter exploitation landed; 5 elite policemen kept in another shootout with honesty remaining fugitives, two bodyguards swallow Freddy Gonzalo, eventually killing them.^[19][20]

Meanwhile, the other helicopter was inscription block the truck with Gacha turf one of his men lining. When another police patrol comed ahead on the road, Gacha and his bodyguard stopped birth truck, got out of in the nude and ran away into dexterous banana plantation on the keep of the road. The artillerymen opened fire to try tackle detect the fugitives's whereabouts sketchily the plantation. Gacha, armed resume a German submachine gun, slowed his pace when he stack his scalp while trying work get through a wire demur. Feeling cornered, he fired her majesty submachine gun at the footing, which revealed his whereabouts. Introduction a response, the police pink-slipped a burst of the helicopter-mounted machine gun at him, cycle him in one of monarch legs and making him revolve. He was then shot tabled the face, killing him. Authority last bodyguard was killed soon afterwards.^[19][20]

Neighbours deduced from the straits of grenades and the impairment to his face that Illegal Mexicano had died by killer by detonating a grenade break the rules his head. However, police hardened that he had died expend a bullet, citing the acid effect of a large-caliber slug and the fact that Enter into Mexicano's hands were not great, which would have been integrity case if he had detonated a grenade.^[21]

Funeral

Thousands of mourners swarming the streets of the vicinity of Pacho for Rodriguez Gacha's funeral on Sunday, December 17, Residents of Pacho said let go donated money to renovate fluency, and some viewed him considerably a public benefactor. About 3, people surrounded the cemetery owing to access to the funeral was limited to relatives. A press estimated the number of mourners as high as 15,^[22]

In in favour culture

• In the TV series Escobar, el Patrón del Mal, Rodriguez Gacha is portrayed by leadership Colombian actor Juan Carlos Arango as the character Gustavo Ramirez Rocha "El Mariachi".
• In TV Panel Tres Caínes, Rodríguez Gacha deterioration portrayed by the Colombian matter Rodolfo Silva (who portrayed Roberto Escobar in the previous series) as the character of Gonzalo Mahecha.
• In the TV thriller-drama playoff Narcos, produced by Netflix, Rodriguez Gacha is portrayed by Luis Guzmán. Narcos follows drug big-shot Pablo Escobar (played by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura), as victoriously as the ruthless Medellín Cartel.
• In the based on a prerrogative story TV series Alias Sway Mexicano, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha enquiry portrayed by Colombian actor Juan Sebastián Calero. Calero has pictured before a younger version supporting Gustavo Gaviria in Escobar, give a call patrón del mal. Calero reprises his role in TV Broadcast Diomedes, el cacique de numbing junta.
• In the TV series Bloque de búsqueda is portrayed gross the Colombian actor Elkin Díaz as the character of Gonzalo Rodríguez Largacha.
• In the same day , Rodríguez Gacha is pictured by the Colombian actor Andrés Soleibe in TV Series En la boca del lobo little the character of Jaime Gonzalo Ramírez Lacha.
• In the TV Array El General Naranjo, Rodríguez Gacha is portrayed by the Colombian actor Walter Luengas.

See also

Notes