the chemists showed us this method of embedding cocaine in plastic. They created a sheet of plastic about one meter long with cocaine inside to prove to us how easily it could be done. It could be made of anything imaginable of plastic or fiberglass. Like the DEA, we had drug-sniffing dogs of our own that were used to test methods of hiding. One beautiful dog was named Marquessa, and we walked the dog right past the fiberglass and it did not detect it. “This is good,” Pablo said, with very little emotion. “This will work.” Pablo was all business, always.

What started as a few kilos hidden in the fender of his Renault had become a very sophisticated operation. Pablo—and his other partners too—had some of the smartest chemists from Europe and America creating these methods for the business. Any product you could think of that was transported from South America to the United States and Europe, they would almost always find a means to include cocaine in it.

Pablo was always looking for unsuspected means to send thousands of kilos in each shipment. Someone, I don’t remember who, came up with the idea to ship the drugs inside huge electric industrial transformers, which normally weighed more than eight thousand pounds. Pablo bought the transformers in Colombia and shipped them to Venezuela, where the inside machinery was removed and four thousand kilos were installed in its place. The transformers were sent to America. After the drugs were unloaded the Americans complained the transformers had technology problems—of course they did, there was nothing inside—and shipped them back to Colombia where the process was repeated. But then he had a problem; while the drugs were being loaded in Venezuela the men responsible for transporting a transformer to the docks were drinking. They got drunk and on their way to their port they made too much noise and got stopped by the Venezuelan police—who were both surprised and happy to discover four thousand kilos of cocaine. That was the end of that method.

But the primary method of transport was by airplane. After the system of used tires was abandoned Pablo decided to open other routes from Central America to America, building support systems in Panama—with the assistance of Panamanian police—and Jamaica, as well as using Carlos Lehder’s services at Norman’s Cay. Pablo’s first airplane was the one for which he always kept the most affection, so much so that when he built the grand house Hacienda Napoles, he mounted this plane over the front gate. It was Pablo’s way of suggesting that this plane was responsible for the riches at Napoles that the visitor was about to enjoy. The plane was a Piper Cub–type, powered by a single propeller. When he bought the plane from a friend it was already well used, but he had it completely redone. With the exception of the pilot’s chair all the seats were removed and the floor was reinforced, leaving a compartment hidden under it for suitcases and extra fuel that allowed the plane to fly much further than was common. This plane was used almost exclusively to fly between Colombia and Panama. Pablo used Panama as a key point to drop off drugs to then be shipped to the United States and pick up cash being sent from America. The small size of the plane and the ability to safely fly low to the ground made it able to avoid radar detection.

Pablo didn’t just pack the plane with drugs. Instead, he would buy thousands of dollars’ worth of gold from the Indians in Chocó and put the gold on the floor of the plane—with the drugs stored beneath it. Then the plane would fly to Panama. In Panama the gold would be sold for a profit and the drugs would be unloaded for the next stage of their journey to the United States. Getting cash back from America to Colombia was as difficult as getting the drugs into that country. Maybe even more difficult because cash took more space than kilos of coke and there was so much more of it. Suitcases packed with cash from America would be put into the compartment and televisions and stereos would be packed on top of them. If the police had discovered the money, supposedly it was the profit from the sale of the gold. While the gold cost Pablo thousands of dollars, the plane could carry as much as $10 million in cash. Pablo used to say that the