Fearing Attacks, Kingpin Escobar Smuggles Family Out of Colombia

Fugitive drug lord Pablo Escobar has smuggled his family out of Colombia, possibly to Europe, to protect them from vengeful enemies, security sources said Friday.

The police sources said Escobar’s wife, Maria Victoria Henao, his two children, Juan Pablo and Manuela, and his mother, Hermilda Gaviria, appeared to have slipped across the border to Venezuela at the end of April carrying false papers.

The family then appears to have continued to a third country, possibly Switzerland, the sources said.

The family fled as vigilantes out to destroy Escobar apparently have resumed hunting down and killing people linked to him.

In a week and a half, seven men who helped run Escobar’s multibillion-dollar Medellin cocaine cartel or who were his hired guns have been killed. That brings to more than 30 the number of Escobar associates slain this year by gunmen who snatch their victims off the street or from their homes.

Military intelligence sources say the pressure is coming from a shadowy paramilitary group made up of former Escobar allies turned foes who act with tacit police and army support.

The group announced its existence publicly under the name of PEPES, the Spanish acronym for People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar, but claimed to have disbanded at the end of April. Police now think it is continuing to operate anonymously.