During the 1970s drug use was at an all time high, President Richard Nixon identified this problem and declared a “War on Drugs” within the U.S.A. Drugs became much harder to acquire due to the introduction of organizations such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP). At this time, the demand for narcotics was extremely high and major drug cartels took notice including the Medellin Cartel in Colombia which was ran by Pablo Escobar. Drugs were pushed into the U.S. by these big cartels and made drugs easily available to consumers. Due to the high demand of drugs within the U.S. and people having no way to get them, Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel heavily impacted …show more content…
To avoid confrontation with authorities, the cartel went so far as to switch to submarines as their means of transportation. However, soon the DEA realized the increase in cocaine coming from the Bahamas and their government eventually kicked them out. Lehder then found another place in Panama. Here, they had an upper hand because of a man named Manuel Noriega who was a corrupt politician that protected the cartel at all costs. These precautions and elaborate transportation methods are one of the reasons they were so hard to be caught and in turn, this expanded the lifeline of the …show more content…
Soon the government came up with an agreement with Escobar to halt all criminal activities and surrender to for “preferential” treatment while in captivity and a shortened sentencing. Pablo surrendered and was taken away. However, he was not taken to an actual prison, instead he was taken to his own “Cathederal Prison” which in reality was a luxury home that included a soccer field, swimming pools, a waterfall, and a bar. When it was seen that Pablos criminal activity was continuing, the colombian government attempted to transfer escobar into a real prison, however because of his connections and the support of his country he was able to escape through a complicated series of underground tunnels under the Cathederal Prison. Escobar had been in hiding for over a year now and in an attempt to escape from Colombian special forces, he was found through radio frequencies and inevitably