Powerful and ruthless, Pablo Escobar created a cocaine empire. The task of brining Pablo Escobar to justice required the United State to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and the deployment of some of the United States most technologically advanced intelligence services of the day. Signals Intelligence gained from an Intelligence Support Activity organization codenamed “Centra Spike” was the key to finding Pablo Escobar and played an integral role in the largest manhunt the world had seen at the time. (Bowden, 2001). “Central Spike was designed to offer an array on support intelligence, but its primary specialty was finding people.” (Bowden, 2001)
Columbia in the 1980 and early nineties had been in bloody conflict for 40 years. It was …show more content…
Delta Force deployed to train and advised a special Colombian police task force known as the Search Bloc, which was created to locate Escobar. (Bowden, 2001) “Every direction-finding, surveillance, and imagery team in the arsenal descended on Medellín.” (Bowden, 2001) It was like a sweepstakes: see who could demonstrate the most effectiveness first.” (Bowden, 2001)“It took ten C-130s just to deliver the contractors and maintenance and support staffs for all the assets.” (Bowden, 2001) A vigilante group known as Los Pepes (Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, "People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar") was formed with one mission, kill anyone who was involved with Pablo Escobar. Los Pepes carried out a bloody campaign, in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates, his lawyer and relatives were slain, and a large amount of the Medellín cartel's property was destroyed. Los Pepes also conducted an extensive information warfare campaign to strike fear into the Medellín cartel.
It became apparent that members of the Search Bloc, and Colombian and United States intelligence agencies either colluded with Los Pepes or moonlighted with Los Pepes. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly through the sharing of intelligence in order to allow Los Pepes to bring down Escobar and his allies. (Bowden,
Columbia in the 1980 and early nineties had been in bloody conflict for 40 years. It was …show more content…
Delta Force deployed to train and advised a special Colombian police task force known as the Search Bloc, which was created to locate Escobar. (Bowden, 2001) “Every direction-finding, surveillance, and imagery team in the arsenal descended on Medellín.” (Bowden, 2001) It was like a sweepstakes: see who could demonstrate the most effectiveness first.” (Bowden, 2001)“It took ten C-130s just to deliver the contractors and maintenance and support staffs for all the assets.” (Bowden, 2001) A vigilante group known as Los Pepes (Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, "People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar") was formed with one mission, kill anyone who was involved with Pablo Escobar. Los Pepes carried out a bloody campaign, in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates, his lawyer and relatives were slain, and a large amount of the Medellín cartel's property was destroyed. Los Pepes also conducted an extensive information warfare campaign to strike fear into the Medellín cartel.
It became apparent that members of the Search Bloc, and Colombian and United States intelligence agencies either colluded with Los Pepes or moonlighted with Los Pepes. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly through the sharing of intelligence in order to allow Los Pepes to bring down Escobar and his allies. (Bowden,