Drug Trafficking in Colombia By Carlos Alberto Betancur Hernandez

In the 1980s Pablo Escobar created a criminal empire that took the city of Medellin as its epicenter, in the middle of 1981 he had an ilegal finantial relationship with his partners the Ochoa Brothers, and in the other hand a global vision of the drug trafficking, that allowed him to open new air and marine routes.

He soon had control of 80 percent of drugs entering the country, as well as business on the streets of Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Chicago.

The demand for cocaine was the strengthening of the Medellín cartel and the nightmare for Colombia.

With his power, Escobar came to the Congress and the country started to know his own barbaric assaults on April 30, 1984, with the assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla. Since then the killings and terrorist attacks didn't stop.

Pablo Escobar bought the consciences of military, police, politicians, businessmen, judges, prosecutors and journalists, but also He ended with the lives of tens of them.

El patron, in English the boss, as they called him with respect for their subordinates, created a terrorist model that remains today, recruiting Young people from the popular neighborhoods of Medellin.

For 31 years, the national police, with the support of the armed forces, the Prosecutor's Office and other institutions, have led the fight against drug trafficking; the Operations focused on the Medellín cartel, battle which ended on December 2, 1993, when Pablo Escobar fell down. Later Cali (1995), coast (1997), Bogotá and then north of the Valley (2008). But any drug that came into the hands of traffickers was grown in areas controlled by the Farc and the AUC.

The war has not been won, despite having topped hundreds of battles. Now there are new challenges and the crime was transformed and adapted to police strategies. Today, the information and domestic consumption are the challenges that the struggle of the police should concentrate.

Maybe everything would have been different if the man did not like to obtain easy and fast money.