Escobar's Teenage Assassins | Facing Escobar

When I arrived in Colombia, it didn't take me very long to realize that I didn't know a thing about Colombia. Bombs were going off everywhere, people getting killed left and right. By the time I was there, maybe a year, I was obsessed with Pablo. I mean, I had to get Pablo.

What we hadn't realized was that Pablo Escobar was a very charismatic person. This guy was relying on hundreds and hundreds of young kids working for him. We had realized that that Sario base was so large. Well, he's recruiting from kids that are 14, 15, 16, 17 years old; he's turning them into murderers for money. He's turning them into Sarios, into assassins.

I remember debriefing one of the Cario. I think this kid was like 15 years old. He had already admitted to 10 killings. He said, "You know what? Our life expectancy is 21, 22 years old. We know we're going to get killed, but if we can satisfy our boss, Escobar, if we can prove that we're loyal to him, this is what we want."

Pablo Escobar had a brilliant recruiting system because he offered not just the chance to be somebody, to have power, to have a gun. He became somebody with status in his barrio. He became the person who, if he did take on a job for Pablo and got killed, would leave his family rich.

This is part of the almost mystical belief in the Escobar structure. If I do give my life, my mother will be cared for. So, my mother often identified with the Virgin Mary—the structure of religious belief in the sanctity of a woman. She would be left rich.