Taking the bad with the good... in Medellín, Colombia

Ever since I was fifteen and my brother introduced me to what I now consider some of my all time favourite films, Goodfellas, Casino, Scarface and of course, The Godfather, I’ve had a slight obsession with bad guys who do well. Whether they're professional con artists or high-class gangsters, completely fictional or disturbingly real, I’m always fascinated by those who society deems the villain of the piece. So when we landed in Colombia’s second city, Medellín, the town where the notorious narcotics trafficker, Pablo Escobar, grew up, I was curious to find out how he had changed both the face and fate of Colombia.

At first glance, Medellín is memorable because of its beauty. Baroque churches and busy museums overlook well kept, leafy parks, where voluptuous sculptures remind us this is the hometown of artist Fernando Botero, the hero Medellín would prefer to be remembered for.

A cable car glides over the deep green valley the town is built on, looking down on the brightly coloured homes that make up the "barrio" where the poorer residents of Medellín live, a juxtaposition too cruel to ignore.

But look again and you’ll notice what I call narchitecture: luxurious buildings painted 'Miami white', a tribute to the illegal powder that funded them; visible bullet holes serving as a cautionary tale for the current drug cartel.

Pablo Escobar was born into an underprivileged family in a village outside Medellín in 1949. Growing up in financial hardship, he expressed a desire to become a millionaire early on, and began working to accomplish his dream at a young age. His criminal career ranged from creative to cliché, with earlier exploits including stealing tombstones and sanding away the names to sell marble; later offences involved more common crimes of car theft and contraband. But it was in the mid ’70s, in the lucrative business of drug trafficking that Escobar made a name for himself, as he became one of the founders of the Medellín Cartel - an organised network responsible for moving colossal amounts of cocaine from Colombia to the United States. By the ’80s Escobar was spending $2,500 a month on rubber bands to hold stacks of hidden cash together... the most famous criminal in Colombia was now the seventh richest man on the planet. Although his ruthless bribing policy of “plata o plomo” (take the money or take a bullet) resulted in just as much violence as it did success, for many Pablo Escobar was actually a hero. He provided poorer neighbourhoods with lighting and sports facilities, and frequently spent money on housing projects for the local community, gaining immense popularity among those the government had neglected. Whether such schemes came from compassion or cunningness, Pablo Escobar became a saviour for the poor, and was seen as a modern day Paisa Robin Hood.

But, the one thing that both heroes and villains have in common is their inevitable downfall.

Pablo Escobar’s lavish lifestyle and public presence made his network a target for both the Colombian and US government, as well as vigilante groups and of course his rivals: the Cali Drug Cartel. With constant wars breaking out between the Medellín Cartel and the aforementioned organisations, by the late ‘80s Medellín’s sky was raining bombs and by the early ’90s it had become the murder capital of the world. Today, Medellín is a great city that attracts just as many tourists as its bad reputation repels. A high police presence contrasts the low-key drug cartel that repeats Escobar’s crimes without repeating his mistakes, operating quietly to turn cocaine into cash. And while Colombia tries hard to eradicate its violent image, we can only hope its dark history serves to create less villainous heroes in the future.

Guess what I found out in Medellín?

1. In 1991 Pablo Escobar finally agreed to go under house arrest in his purpose built, extravagant "prison" known as La Catedral. An avid football supporter, Escobar regularly invited Colombia's national football team to come and play at the prison - a perk that came with entirely financing the squad as a means of money laundering. 2. When the government became aware of continued criminal activity occurring from within the prison despite an agreement with Pablo, they decided to move him to a real prison, only to find he had escaped from La Catedral. The most expensive man hunt in history began. 3. Fifteen months later, the day after his 42nd birthday, Pablo Escobar was killed on a rooftop shootout. An estimated 20,000 people attended his burial.