Gustavo Gaviria

Gustavo Gaviria
Born
Gustavo de Jesús Gaviria Rivero

(1946-12-25)25 December 1946
Pereira, Colombia
Died11 August 1990(1990-08-11) (aged 43)
Medellín, Colombia
Other namesEl León (The Lion)
El Doctor (The Doctor) [1]
OrganizationMedellín Cartel
RelativesPablo Escobar Gaviria (cousin)
Roberto Escobar (cousin)

Gustavo de Jesús Gaviria Rivero (25 December 1946 – 11 August 1990) was a Colombian drug trafficker. As Pablo Escobar's cousin and right-hand man, Gaviria controlled the Medellín cartel's finances and trade routes. He and Escobar had collaborated in their criminal careers since the early 1970s.

Though he was the owner of a fortune comparable to Escobar's and even had a military apparatus at his service, Gaviria was not as well known, as he kept a low profile.[2]

After Gustavo's death, Escobar decided to turn himself in but to stay at La Catedral, a jail of his own making, guarded by his own guards. Since Gustavo died four days after President César Gaviria took office, at the time, the media and the country in general thought the president had begun his term with an offensive against the narcoterrorists. Gustavo's death triggered a counter-offensive by Escobar that initially destabilized the new president's administration.

  1. ^ "León Dirigía Toda la Acción Terrorista". 12 August 1990.
  2. ^ "Semblanza del capo del cartel de Medellín, Pablo Escobar- Archivo Digital de Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo desde 1.990 - eltiempo.com". El Tiempo. December 2008. Retrieved 23 October 2015.