in my own country without the fear of arrest. I had been forced to flee. To become a hunted man and be powerless to do anything about it shakes your soul. To watch your family suffering and not be able to stop that is the most terrible feeling. And I was a fugitive without committing any crimes: I was pursued by Belisario Betancur’s government just for being Pablo’s brother. But that’s where we were, at the mercy of my brother and his ability to solve his problems.

In Bogotá the Betancur government began the new policy of extradition to the United States. One of the first four Colombians to be delivered to the Americans was Hernán Botero Moreno, the owner of the Nacional soccer team, the most popular team in Medellín. Botero came from a wealthy family who owned a great hotel in the city and he was accused of laundering $57 million for the drug traffickers. The fact that he was arrested was unfair because at that moment there wasn’t a law against transporting money. Even though he had been arrested he didn’t believe he could be extradited for committing an act that wasn’t a crime under Colombian law. In addition to Botero, extradition papers were signed against Carlos Lehder in case he was caught. And the word we got was that they were looking hard for evidence against Pablo in order to sign the papers on him.

While we were in Nicaragua Pablo spent time trying to establish a new foundation for the business. He split the 1100 kilos he had brought with him into two shipments. Pablo hired a pilot named Barry Seal, who normally worked for other leaders, to deliver six hundred kilos to the United States. Barry Seal previously had delivered more than one hundred loads’ worth, valued at between $3 and $5 billion. But this load got seized when he landed in Florida. Then it was discovered that Seal was a former CIA man who was collaborating with the American DEA. He presented dark, hazy photographs to the DEA that he said showed Pablo and others loading the drugs onto his plane. President Reagan showed one of those pictures on television to prove Pablo was sending drugs from Central America. Pablo said loudly that it could not be him in the picture, because one thing he never did was load drugs himself.

The public naming of Pablo Escobar as a drug kingpin was very painful to our mother. She told me that the first time she heard Pablo called “Most Wanted” on television she wanted to die. Pablo calmed her: “Your son is on TV but don’t believe everything that’s said. I’m not going to tell you, Mommy, that I’m a saint, but I’m not the devil either. I have to protect myself, I have to fight back. Mommy, you need to understand that they made me like this. I was in the business helping people, but they made me like this.”

Supposedly this Nicaragua story was revealed to the newspapers by Colonel Oliver North, who was working in the basement of the White House to help the Nicaraguan rebel contras overturn the Sandinista government. This story served his purpose well. But this also gave the American government evidence that Pablo was a drug trafficker and allowed them to get an indictment against him and Gacha so that they could be put on the extradition list. Barry Seal was to be the important witness in the U.S. trial against a friend of Pablo’s if this person could be extradited to America. Two years afterward Seal was assassinated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and naturally Pablo and the Medellín cartel got blamed for it. Like always, it made headlines and was useful to political people. Except that afterward three Colombians eventually were convicted of this assassination and when questioned they said they were instructed in the operation by an anonymous military officer, who they believed was a colonel.

Eventually Pablo decided that the safest place for him was Colombia, where he had control of the people around him. Things had cooled down enough for him to return, although no longer with a public profile. But he still believed it was possible to reach an agreement with the government to take off the pressure. “I’m going to go home,” he told me. “I’ll make arrangements for everyone.”

I traveled briefly to Brazil and finally landed in Madrid, Spain, where we were in operation. I spent time there with a Medellín cartel boss. We