Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha

Lore & Background

Rodríguez Gacha was born in May 1947 in the small town of Veraguas, near Pacho in the department of Cundinamarca, to a poor family of cheese vendors. He left school in the early 1970s and moved to Muzo, Boyacá, the center of the emerald exploitation in Colombia, where he worked under Gilberto Molina Moreno, the 'tsar' of emeralds, developing a fearsome reputation as a killer. He became acquainted with drug traffickers, decided the drug business was more profitable, and moved to Bogotá, where he associated with Verónica Rivera de Vargas, the 'queen of cocaine,' by murdering the family of her main rival.

Rivera introduced him to Pablo Escobar and Mexican drug lord Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. After moving to Medellín in 1976, Rodríguez Gacha associated with the Ochoa family, Pablo Escobar, and Carlos Lehder in establishing an alliance that became the Medellín Cartel. He pioneered new trafficking routes through Mexico and into the United States, primarily Los Angeles, California and Houston, Texas, and is often said to have been the first to establish cooperation strategies with drug trafficking cartels in Mexico.

His infatuation with Mexican popular culture, music, and horse culture, and his fondness for foul language, earned him the nickname El Mexicano. He owned a string of farms in his hometown with Mexican inspired names such as Cuernavaca, Chihuahua, Sonora and Mazatlán. According to the US Justice Department, Rodríguez directed cocaine trafficking operations through Panama and the West Coast (California) of the United States. It is claimed that he helped design a Nicaraguan trafficking operation that employed pilot Barry Seal (who was murdered on February 19, 1986, after agreeing to testify against the Medellín Cartel).

Rodríguez Gacha based much of his operations from Bogotá and other areas in the Cundinamarca region, as well as in the Middle Magdalena region. It was Rodríguez who first set up Tranquilandia, one of the largest and best known of the jungle laboratories where more than two thousand people lived and worked making and packaging cocaine.

Reader's Guide

Based on the real-life figure José Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (14 May 1947 – 15 December 1989), this character was one of the leaders of the Medellín Cartel along with the Ochoa brothers and Pablo Escobar. He was acknowledged as one of the world's most successful drug dealers, and in 1988, Forbes magazine included him in their annual list of the world's billionaires. His nickname El Mexicano came from his infatuation with Mexican popular culture, music, and horse culture, and his fondness for foul language.

He pioneered trafficking routes through Mexico into the United States, primarily Los Angeles and Houston, and is often said to have been the first to establish cooperation strategies with Mexican drug cartels. He was the de facto military leader of the cartel, forming a paramilitary organization of around 1,000 men. He set up Tranquilandia, one of the largest jungle laboratories where more than two thousand people lived and worked. He was named as a material witness in the assassination of Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara on April 30, 1984.

He was on the US Attorney General's 'dirty dozen' list of most wanted Colombian drug kingpins released on August 21, 1989. On December 6, 1989, authorities froze $61.8 million of his assets in five countries, with an additional $20 million transferred to Panama. He died on 15 December 1989.