Pablo Escobar, the Narcos King

Colombia's most feared drug lord, Pablo Escobar died 31 years ago at age 44. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949 – December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug lord. The Medellín cartel leader was one of the wealthiest men in the world at the height of his power. His cartel was smuggling tons of cocaine a day, worth hundreds of millions, into America.

In the early 1970s Escobar was a thief and bodyguard. He made $100k from the kidnapping and ransoming a Medellín executive before entering the drug trade with Alvaro Prieto. In 1975 Escobar started his own cocaine operation. He flew a plane himself, between Colombia and Panama, to smuggle loads into the US.

When he later bought 15 new and bigger airplanes (including a Learjet) and 6 helicopters, he decommissioned the plane and hung it above the gate to his ranch.

Corruption and intimidation characterized Escobar's operations. His policy in dealing with authority was referred to as "plata o plomo," (literally silver or lead, colloquially take money or die).

Colombia quickly became the world’s murder capital. Escobar was responsible for the deaths of about 4,000 people, including three Colombian presidential candidates, an attorney general, an estimated 200 judges and 1,000 police. In 1989, he bombed a Colombian plane and Bogota's DAS building, killing 159 and injuring 1,000 others.

In 1989, Forbes estimated Escobar to be the seventh-richest man in the world with a personal wealth of US$25 billion while his Medellín cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market.

In 1992 US Delta Force, Navy SEALs and Centra Spike joined an all-out manhunt for Escobar. They trained and advised a special Colombian police task force, known as the Search Bloc. The war against Escobar ended on December 2, 1993.

Using radio triangulation technology provided by the US, a Colombian electronic surveillance team found him hiding in a middle-class barrio in Medellín. A firefight with Escobar and his bodyguard ensued. The two fugitives attempted to escape by running across the roofs of adjoining houses to reach a back street, but both were shot and killed.

Pablo Escobar’s once-opulent Colombian vacation home was demolished. The 20-room mansion, complete with a private runway for Escobar’s planes, was one of the main tourist draws at a theme park that now covers much of the drug dealer’s former estate of Hacienda Napoles.

Theme park managers demolished the semi-ruined mansion before it collapsed.

A growing herd of hippos, the offspring of 4 bought in the 1980s for Escobar’s zoo, still roam the area. There’s also a former bullring.

Vincent 'Vinny Ocean' Palermo - The real Tony Soprano

Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo

Vincent 'Vinny Ocean' Palermo, 80, was a de facto boss of the New Jersey DeCavalcante crime family. Fictional mob boss Tony Soprano is based on Palermo. In the early 60s, Vincent Palermo married the niece of boss Sam DeCavalcante, who invited him to his social club.

Palermo operated Wiggles, a strip club in Forest Hills, Queens.

On Sept 11, 1989, Palermo, Anthony Capo, and James Gallo murdered Fred Weiss on orders from boss Giovanni 'John the Eagle' Riggi.

Palermo worked at the fish markets.

Weiss was associated with mobsters from the DeCavalcantes and the Gambinos. Weiss and his partners bought land in Staten Island and illegally dumped medical waste. Cops uncovered the scheme, and the two mob families worried. John Gotti requested the DeCavalcantes murder Weiss.

Simone DeCavalcante - Sam the Plumber

Boss Giovanni Riggi during the murder trial of Weiss. Palermo was 'made' and shortly after was appointed caporegime. Riggi was sent to prison in 1989, and he appointed John 'Johnny Boy' D'Amato as his acting boss. D'Amato's girlfriend said he was gay. Riggi ordered Palermo and Anthony Capo to kill D'Amato to avoid embarrassment to the DeCavalcantes. John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato disappeared in early 1992. His body was never found.

John "Johnny Boy" D'Amato.

'Vito Spatafore' - Sopranos

In 1995, the acting boss of the DeCavalcante family, Giacomo Amari, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. A 'ruling panel' was created, consisting of three men, Vincent Palermo, Charles 'Big Ears' Majuri, and Girolamo 'Jimmy' Palermo. (no relation) After a failed power play by Majuri, Vinny Palermo was the de facto boss of the family, paralleling Tony Soprano. In 1998, the FBI recruited Ralph Guarino as an informant who devastated the DeCavalcante family. The FBI gave him rigged cell phones to distribute to other mafioso. Guarino was promoted to made man.

In 1999 the FBI busted the DeCavalcantes and Palermo became a government witness. Palermo confessed to killing Weiss and mobster Louis LaRasso and to planning the murders of John D'Amato, Joseph Masella, Charles Majuri, Frank D'Amato, and Tom Salvata. He also implicated other DeCavalcante family members. On September 14, 2009, the New York Daily News exposed Vinny Ocean's new life in witness protection as a strip club operator in Houston, Texas. The 'Penthouse Club' and 'All-Star Men's Club' were hotbeds of prostitution and drugs. He also owned a Mexican restaurant and a car wash - all next to one another in Houston.

On March 4, 2013, Palermo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Under Chapter 11, a person's assets and debts are not liquidated, but the filer is given court protection from creditors. Palermo put his $2.45m home up for sale in September 2015.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes - Lord of the Skies

The son of José Cruz Carrillo Fuentes and nephew of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as 'El Señor de Los Cielos' has been killed outside of Culiacán. The body of Carrillo Jacobo was found inside a warehouse, with his body having multiple gunshot wounds. Carillo Jacobo's father, José Cruz Carrillo Fuentes, died in a similar way to his son but 16 years previously. Amado Carrillo Fuentes was one of Mexico's most prominent drug lords after taking over as leader of the Juárez Cartel in 1970.

A grisly wake in a government building in Mexico City on July 8, 1997 was the first glimpse of a man whose name many knew but few uttered. Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one the most powerful kingpins in Mexican history was dead and his rotting corpse was on public display.

Amado Carillo Fuentes 'Lord of the Skies' was boss of Ciudad Juárez cartel. He was one of the world's most powerful drug lords through the 80s and 90s. He took control of the Juárez cartel after killing his boss, Rafael Aguilar Guajardo. Fuentes was famous for his extreme ruthlessness. In 1997 he checked into a hospital under a false name to have plastic surgery to alter his appearance.

He died as a result of the botched operation, which included liposuction. Authorities released gruesome photos of his body to counter rumors he was still alive. But the battered state of the body meant he was unrecognizable, which fueled more rumors. Surgeons who performed the operation were killed months later. Their bodies, which showed signs of torture, were stuffed into oil drums filled with concrete. Fuentes former mansion had a surveillance room for security guards.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes's home was part of Mexico's National Lottery in Sept 2021.

A gun owned by Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Julio César Carrillo

Gunmen killed a son of Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 2020. Julio César Carrillo was found shot to death at a house in Novolato. After the death of the elder Carrillo Fuentes, his brothers and sons continued operating the Juárez drug cartel, based in Ciudad Juárez. For years it was locked in a turf war with the rival Sinaloa cartel. Juárez cartel's armed enforcement wing, 'La Linea,' split off and began operating on its own.

Human smugglers Patels, Steve Shand, killers of family of 4

As a family of four struggled through a brutal snowstorm, they called smuggler Fenil Patel for help. Help never came. Testimony came from Rajinder Pal Singh during the trial of Harshkumar Patel and Steve Shand. They smuggled a family of four through Canada before they froze to death on the Manitoba border with the U.S. A Minnesota jury found Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel guilty on all charges.

Steve Shand leaves court in Fergus Falls, Minn.

Fenil Patel was found living comfortably in a suburb outside Toronto by the CBC's The Fifth Estate. Fenil Patel is said to have driven dozens of illegal Indian migrants from Toronto to B.C and then Manitoba as a human smuggler.Harshkumar Patel, Steve Shand.

Fenil Patel

The Patel family (no relation) died of exposure on Jan. 19, 2022, while attempting to cross illegally into Minnesota. The frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, their daughter, Vihangi, 11, and son, Dharmik, 3, were found 12 metres from the U.S. border. They died in -35 temperatures and a blinding snowstorm. Fenil Patel is facing charges in Gujarat of culpable homicide and human smuggling for his role in the death of the Patel family.

Tyrel Nguyen Quesnelle = life

'T-Sav' was sentenced to serve at least 25 years in prison without parole in January 2024.

Tyrel Nguyen Quesnelle, 24, was found guilty of the first-degree murders of Randy Kang on Oct. 27, 2017 and Jagvir Mahli on Nov. 12, 2018. Nguyen was also convicted of the attempted hits of Kang’s brother Gary and Camilo Alonso.

Gary Kang was executed at his Surrey home.

The gangster's own admissions sealed the deal. A cop rat testified that Nguyen gave him details of both murders, before he became a police agent in 2019. Those details were revealed in an Edmonton apartment where Quesnelle wrote of the crimes on a white board that was being secretly filmed. A judge was shown videos recorded inside an Edmonton apartment by a cop rat as he asked Tyrel Nguyen about the 2 murders.

Executed Harb Dhaliwal center, Tyrel Nguyen right.

Brothers Keeper Nguyen was charged in the Oct 2017 killing of Randy Kang and the Nov 2018 botched hit on student Jagvir Malhi. Nguyen was played like a fiddle by cops.

'T-Sav' (Tyrel Nguyen Quesnelle) rapped about his greatness when free. He will be nearly 50  when that happens again.

Dead Man's Hand - Wild Bill Hickok

James Butler Hickok, 'Wild Bill', was a folk hero of the American Old West. Hickok came to the West as a stagecoach driver, then became a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War and was a gambler after.

Hickok had a premonition Deadwood would be his last camp, and said so to friend Charlie Utter. Hickok held black aces and eights when he was murdered - the Dead Man's Hand.

Between his law-enforcement duties and gambling, Hickok was involved in several shootouts. He was shot and killed on August 2, 1876 while playing poker in the Number Ten Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Hickok usually sat with his back to the wall. The only seat put his back to a door.

McCall's grave was moved in 1881 and his body was found to still have the noose around his neck.

Former buffalo hunter John McCall walked in unnoticed. He walked to within a few feet of Wild Bill and then drew a pistol and shouted, “Take that!” before firing. The bullet hit Hickok in the back of the head, killing him instantly. McCall was acquitted at his first trial but was hanged March 1, 1877 after a second.