The Medellin Cartel was founded in Medellin, Colombia. It’s main operations were conducted in Colombia, but the cartel had connections with other organizations located in Bolivia, Peru and Central America. The cartel was led by Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers, Jorge Luis, Juan David and Fabio. Before becoming drug traffickers the Ochoa brothers were respected ranchers and Escobar was a street thief. The men then joined forces with marijuana smuggler Carlos Lehder to learn how to produce and traffick cocaine. The men started with small operations by flying cocaine into the United States in small airplanes. As more people started to use cocaine, the Medellin cartel increased the scale and complexity of its cocaine trafficking, and with this …show more content…
This would eventually lead to a war between the Medellin Cartel and the Colombian government. The cartel carried out numerous terrorist attacks against civilians and government targets in order to bring down the Colombian government. Hundreds of government personnel and civilians died from the Medellin Cartel’s violence, including a presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan. In order to influence Colombian government the cartel began to bribe many government officials and those who didn’t accept the bribery were killed. However, the enormous amount of violence began to negatively affect the Medellin Cartel.
Different groups of people associated with the Medellin Cartel began to be closely watched by the Colombian Government. As they started to arrest people affiliated with the Medellin Cartel, they got closer to Pablo Escobar. The number of Medellin leaders taken into custody was not very large because they would leave Colombia before they were able to be charged. With the help of United States agents was able to break down the Medellin Cartel. By 1993 almost all of the Medellin leaders were imprisoned or killed by the Colombian National Police. Just after this, the Colombian police with help from the United States Government in an attempt to capture Pablo Escobar ended up killing