Roberto Escobar Gaviria, was born in Medellín, Colombia in 1941; beyond his famous surnames and outstanding career in the service of crime; He was a prominent participant in road cycling events in his native Colombia in the mid-sixties.
Roberto reached the peak of his performance as a high-level athlete by being part of the team that got the third place in the team event in the Colombian National Championship of the very popular sport of the calapié, before entering public notoriety as one of the Lieutenants of his brother Pablo Escobar Gaviria.
He had five children, Nicolás and José Roberto from his first marriage. The latter was murdered in 1999. And then with Claudia Azcárraga he had three more, two girls and a boy named Joseph.
Why was Roberto Escobar called El Osito (Little bear)?
From that internship by the cycling, besides having occupied a meritorious second place in the voting among sports journalists to choose the Athlete of the year of the Department of Antioquia behind nothing less and nothing more than of the legendary world champion of his same specialty, “Cochise” Rodríguez; he got the nickname of “El Osito” after the resemblance that a sports announcer found to his appearance while participating in a competition.
In the midst of a torrential rain there was a river of mud on the road that he had to travel as part of the route and the rims of his bike filled his face with mud leaving his eyes barely exposed, when he approached the goal, the commentator said “there comes Roberto Escobar, who looks more like a bear”
Escobar also directed the technical team of the Colombian national team of the sports specialty that occupied a large part of his youth in several international competitions.
The Studies of Roberto Escobar
“El Osito” as it would be registered in the judicial files that support the charges formulated against him by the Colombian justice, without a doubt he possessed a special talent. He came to study Pharmacy, while working as an intern in a drug production laboratory that was part of the business group that headed “Allied Drugstores”, by the way, one of the sponsors of his sports adventures.
He studied Electronics at the Academy of Electronic Sciences of Antioquia supported by the company “Mora Hermanos”, obtaining the first place in the project to build a transistor radio and presenting a 32-inch TV as Special Degree Work, in addition to pursuing studies in medicine sports and nursing in which he had a notorious participation to the point of having received recognition from “Coldeportes”, the governing institution of formal sports activity in Colombia.
Based on his good name as an athlete of high competence, he dedicated himself to the commercialization of bicycles through the firm he founded with the name of “El Osito” and the breeding of horses with the “El Potrerillo” breeding farm. Obtaining with the last one prizes in various events developed between 1978 and 1983.
Roberto Escobar Within the Medellín Cartel
Escobar Gaviria, combined his business activities with the management of the logistics infrastructure that served as the base for the operations of the Medellin Cartel and he was accused of having directed the group of assassins that served as an armed wing to clear the path of anyone who either became a traitor to the cause of the sinister criminal organization or a nuisance in his tenacious task of distributing alkaloids wholesale.
Roberto Escobar Submits to the Authorities
In October 1992, Roberto, AKA Popeye and Otto submit to justice. The idea of Pablo was that Roberto from jail would handle the political part with the government, in addition he would have easy access to the authorities to facilitate the next surrender of Pablo.
El Osito was sentenced to 14 years in prison for illicit enrichment, drug trafficking, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit a crime. However, he only spent 10 years behind bars.
The Cali Cartel Attends against the Life of Roberto Escobar
The Cali Cartel hated Roberto to death since he had killed two boys in the service of those of Cali who had been sent to Medellin to liquidate one of the drugstores La Rebaja. One of the two boys was very close to Gilberto’s family, so he swore that he would kill Roberto.
In addition, on several occasions when Pablo and Gilberto talked on the phone trying to reach a peace agreement, Roberto snatched the phone and started insulting Gilberto and telling him that he was going to kill him and his entire family.
On December 19, 1993, while serving time in a Colombian prison; Gilberto and his people sent him a letter-bomb that exploded in his face literally causing him to lose an eye.
Roberto never opened the letters that were sent to him, he paid someone to do it for him, but this time as the envelope came with a large stamp of the prosecution and he was also waiting for copies of his process he had requested a few days back, he did not care about doing it himself.
Roberto gets old
Despite his turbulent life, coordinating groups of hired assassins, plotting routes for drug trafficking and in prisons where he lived with highly dangerous subjects, he was able to reach an advanced age tormented and repentant of his activities to promote urban violence as part of the war that his brother declared to the Colombian State, as attraction of a tourist activity associated with the globalized criminal organization and model of regional economic integration.
Roberto Escobar actively collaborated with Colombian judicial authorities by providing information that would lead to the capture of Cartel collaborators, the dismantling of routes and the confiscation of assets acquired with resources resulting from drug distribution operations in exchange for a substantial reduction in his sentence.
His own nephew Juan Pablo Escobar says that Roberto had to have reached some agreement with the leaders of Cali to have his life spared, since they had more hatred for him than even Pablo Escobar himself.
Roberto Escobar and the Pablo Escobar Museum
Roberto decided to turn one of the properties into a museum that serves as a testimony to the new generations to come about the consequences of dedicating their lives to perverse purposes.
Among its walls, he tells to those who want to listen to, his life as a Medellín Cartel Accountant, stating that he has opposed bloodshed, explosions and attacks, not to mention the amount of money he managed and that was used to finance those reprehensible events where so much innocent people died.
Now he reviews his life with morbid tourists who pay 30 US dollars for asking him how many deaths he has under his belt, details of the eccentric life that the druglords had, characterized by extravagant tastes, such as the boom in criminal activity that turned a harmless leaf of a plant into billions of dollars, enough to pay the external debt of a country burdened by recession and inequality among the few who have everything and the many who lack everything, as well as the story of the abrupt fall of the Cartel and the details of his brother’s death.
Roberto Discover the cure against AIDS
Now he assures to his interlocutors to have used his studies and research as an empirical veterinarian to combat equine infectious anemia in getting a cure for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome with a medicine “that will soon go on sale” he usually ensures. This new facet, can be an unconscious form that his personality adopted to repair so much damage caused to society.
John Jairo Velásquez, AKA Popeye accuses him of being a liar and a swindler, assuring that he steals the savings of their entire life to people excited to get rid of such a ruthless disease.
Roberto Escobar Sues Netflix
After Netflix premiered his popular series Narcos, Roberto decided that he should receive a billion dollars for his brother Pablo’s image rights. In an interview he said that the Netflix people were scared and that if they did not pay him what he demanded, he would close its little show.
Roberto Escobar and the Television
El Osito appears in several television series, including:
- In Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord he appears under the name of Alberto Escobar Gaviria, and the actor who plays him it is Rodrigo Silva.