Drug Estates Reflect a Yen for Ostentation

Everyone has heard that the lords of the Colombian drug cartels live amid opulence that even fellow billionaires might envy.

And indeed, the fabulous riches and ostentatious life styles of the cartel kingpins were amply illustrated this week when police and army troops seized hundreds of their mansions, ranches and businesses in Colombia’s toughest-ever skirmish in the drug war.

For example, the Bogota pied-a-terre of one top Medellin cartel leader, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha--known for his taste in Mexican art objects as well as his reputedly unparalleled brutality--was found by those who seized it to be virtually marble-encased and gold-plated. The mansion, which covered a square block, had 10 gold-fixtured bathrooms lined in silk. Even the toilet paper was designer-styled in Italy, featuring the image of a nude woman on each sheet.

Lesser Light’s Estate

But the lesser figures of the drug conglomerate who would be classed as “middle management” in any other business live more modest lives, right?

Not so, according to the Colombian army’s 13th Brigade, which seized the extraordinary 200-acre country estate of minor cartel figure Camillo Zapata Vasquez last weekend and showed it to foreign journalists here Friday.

The centerpiece of the rural Bogota estate is a 19th-Century castle, a reproduction of a medieval battlement that is crammed with rich antiques and oil paintings dark with age.

Inside, a leather-bound guest book gives a strong hint of the host’s business interests, with affectionate notes inscribed by local politicians, police and military officers as well as by guests whose talents may have been of less subtle use to the cartel.

“Living by chance, Loving by choice, Killing for profession,” read one English-language inscription. It was signed “Mad Max.”

Another offered cryptic felicitations. “Happy Birthday,” it declared. “Tomorrow they are going to kill me because of you.”

In addition to the fairyland stone castle, the immaculately manicured grounds boasted a dozen buildings, including a plexiglass-roofed structure for the swimming pool and barbecue, a spotless stable for a dozen thoroughbred show horses and two architecturally entrancing mansions.

One was what might be best described as sprawling neo-Elizabethan, an English-style, one-story, stone-and-stucco building of numerous wings nestled under a grass-thatched roof.

Two of Zapata’s 10 gardeners said their master, whom they believe is on the lam somewhere in the United States, held himself aloof from the estate’s staff but entertained lavishly and often. He paid the gardeners less than $100 a month, they said.

Extravagant Chapel

Amid the elaborate landscaping were a number of small religious shrines, but none was so extravagant as Zapata’s private chapel, a 10-pew sanctuary dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, with modern stained-glass windows depicting the Apostles in full color.

But despite the prominence of Zapata’s estate, with its private bullring, lighted tennis courts, guest houses and bridle paths, neither the soldiers who seized it nor the still-working groundskeepers seemed to know much about Zapata himself.

An army colonel who led the tour of the estate called Zapata a “small-fry drug trafficker” associated with Gacha, who anti-drug specialists here say has become the leading figure in the Medellin cartel. But Colombian journalists who follow the business fortunes of the cartels said that Zapata was more of a contact man for Gacha, working for fees rather than earning from direct drug sales.