Narcos and the Billionaire Drug Lords

 


     I’ve just finished watching Narcos (three seasons, ten eps each, starring Pedro Pascal of Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian). I’m quite late yes, because the show ended in 2017. Narcos is a Netflix series about the two biggest drug cartels in Colombia: Medellin Cartel led by the legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel headed by the Rodriguez brothers, Miguel and Gilberto, and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agents that investigated and brought them down.

     Currently rated 89% (the highest being 100%) on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.8 (the highest being10) on IMDB, it’s a great, thrilling, suspenseful, gritty, brutal, gut-wrenching, bloody, violent, addicting (sorry for the pun), entertaining show.

     While the Rodriguez brothers were discreet and kept low profile in their operations, managing their cartel like corporate CEOs, resorting only to murders when it was necessary; Escobar was evil and brutal and flamboyant and killed on a whim, murdering thousands of civilians (including bombing a commercial plane full of passengers) and hundreds of policemen, making Medellin an extension of hell on earth.

     It’s a true story, yes, but inevitably, some events were fictionalized for dramatization purposes. True stories can be boring at times even those that tackle murderous drug lords. But you’d find relief and amusement with the fact that most of the actors in the show really resembled the real-life characters they were portraying.

     Escobar, who allegedly amassed a fortune equivalent to 70 billion US dollars today during his cocaine-selling heyday and was often included in Forbes Magazine’s billionaire issues, was evil, yes, but the show will also remind you how devout he was and his mother, who indulged his criminal activities, on their religious beliefs (both were Catholic and extremely God-fearing). If they were alive today, they'd probably litter their social media accounts with biblical quotes and verses. Lol.

     Photo above shows the body of Escobar on the roof of his hideout after a shootout with the authorities in 1993, just a day after his 44th birthday. Above scene is a screenshot from the Netflix show, below is the real deal.

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