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Pablo Escobar Facts & Worksheets

Pablo Escobar was one of the world’s wealthiest drug lords. He was the leader of the Medellin Cartel which used to supply 80% of the world’s cocaine by the 1980s.

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Pablo Escobar was one of the world’s wealthiest drug lords. He was the leader of the Medellin Cartel which used to supply 80% of the world’s cocaine by the 1980s. He was nicknamed “El Patron”, “the King of Cocaine”, “Robin Hood”, “El Padrino”, and “Don Pablo.”

See the fact file below for more information on the Pablo Escobar or alternatively, you can download our 24-page Pablo Escobar worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Personal Life

  • Pablo Escobar was born on December 1, 1949 in Rionegro, Colombia, and grew up in Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia.
  • His father was a poor Colombian farmer and his mother was a teacher in an elementary school.
  • He was the third of seven children.
  • Escobar claims to have been stealing cars and smuggling tombstones when he was younger, before he got into selling drugs.
  • Escobar attended the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Medellin, but did not stay long enough to obtain a degree.
  • He married Maria Victoria Vellejo in 1976. He was 27 and Maria was 15 when they were wed.

Achievements

  • He was one of the wealthiest people in the world by the time he was 35 years old.
  • From 1987 to 1993, Pablo Escobar was consistently included in Forbes’ international billionaires list.
  • He was labelled the seventh richest man in the world in 1989.
  • Escobar was called “Robin Hood” because he used part of his money to help poor people.
  • He launched feeding programs and gave money to hospitals and churches.
  • He built houses, soccer fields, and a zoo.
  • He built an extravagant home called Puerto Triunfo, where a private zoo is found.
  • Escobar earned an estimated total of $30 billion in his whole career.
  • Escobar was also elected to Colombia’s Congress.

The Medellin cartel

  • The Medellin Cartel earned $420 million a week in revenue.
  • The cartel smuggled in around 15 tons of cocaine everyday from north coast of Colombia into Florida, USA.
  • There biggest single shipment flown to the United States weighed 51,000 pounds.
  • The packages would either be airdropped to sea and transported in speedboats or flown out and crashed into the mainland.
  • When he was earning more money than what he could launder, Escobar ended up storing cash in Colombian fields, abandoned warehouses, and in walls of his cartel members’ houses.
  • Every month, the cartel was losing $2.1 billion in profit to molds and pests eating the money stashed away in random places.
  • Organizing the cash took $2,500 worth of rubber bands every month.
  • Escobar allegedly smuggled and stashed cocaine into the tires of planes.
  • He also bought submarines to smuggle drugs into the US.

Crimes

  • To achieve his goal in being the top drug lord, he hired hit men to intimidate his business colleagues and assassinate his competition.
  • One of Escobar’s top hit men was John Jairo Velasquez or “Popeye” as he was called.
  • Escobar was accountable for the deaths of 4,000 people consisting of judges, police officers, journalists, and government authorities.
  • Medellin had the highest homicide rate in 1989.
  • In the same year, Escobar was responsible for the explosion of a California-bound airplane labelled Avianca Flight 203, which resulted in the deaths of 107 people.
  • Two of those people were Americans, so the American government started the hunt for Escobar.
  • Escobar feared extradition which would require him to be imprisoned in the United States.
  • Escobar offered to pay $10 billion of Colombia’s debt in exchange for changing the laws of extradition against him.
  • Colombian authorities took possession of 142 planes, 141 houses and office buildings, 32 yachts, and 20 helicopters that belonged to Escobar.

La Catedral

  • In 1991, he built his own prison called “La Catedral” (translated as the cathedral).
  • The Colombian government let him be incarcerated in his luxurious prison.
  • From the prison, he had the free will to choose his workers and visitors.
  • He was also allowed to run his cartel from La Catedral.
  • Colombian authorities were restricted to be further than 3 miles from La Catedral at all times.
  • La Catedral had a casino, a soccer field, a spa, a nightclub, a barbecue pit, and many patios.
  • Near La Catedral was a compound where his family lived.

Other Facts

  • Pablo Escobar died at age 44. Some speculate that the wound was self-inflicted.
  • Around 25,000 people attended Escobar’s burial in Medellin.
  • After his death, his family had to live in exile in Argentina.
  • Escobar’s estate has been turned into a theme park since he died.
  • The theme park houses his collection of cars, animals (like his hippopotamus), and big dinosaur models.
  • According to his son, Juan Pablo, there was a time when Pablo and his family were hiding in the countryside and his daughter got extremely cold and hypothermic, so he lit up $2 million cash to keep his daughter warm.
  • Escobar owned a Spanish copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, as discovered by authorities in his home.

Pablo Escobar Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Pablo Escobar across 24 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Pablo Escobar worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Pablo Escobar who was one of the world’s wealthiest drug lords. He was the leader of the Medellin Cartel which used to supply 80% of the world’s cocaine by the 1980s. He was nicknamed “El Patron”, “the King of Cocaine”, “Robin Hood”, “El Padrino”, and “Don Pablo.”

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Pablo Escobar Facts
  • Young Pablo
  • Nickname Roots
  • Puzzle Escobar
  • Escobar Crossword
  • Medellin News
  • Escobar the Criminal
  • Modified True or False
  • Escobar Once Said
  • Narcos Script
  • Letter to Pablo

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Link will appear as Pablo Escobar Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, November 12, 2018

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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