#1. Early life

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on 1 December 1949, in Rionegro, in the Antioquia Department of Colombia. He was the third of seven children of the farmer Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar Echeverri (1910–2001) with his wife Hermilda de Los Dolores Gaviria Berrío (d. 2006), an elementary school teacher.

Escobar came from a modest family: His father worked as a peasant farmer while his mother was a schoolteacher. From an early age, Escobar packed a unique ambition to raise himself up from his humble beginnings.

Raised in the nearby city of Medellín, Escobar is thought to have begun his criminal career as a teenager, allegedly stealing gravestones and sanding them down for resale to local smugglers. His brother, Roberto Escobar, denies this, instead claiming that the gravestones came from cemetery owners whose clients had stopped paying for site care and that he had a relative who had a monuments business. Escobar's son, Sebastián Marroquín, claims his father's foray into crime began with a successful practice of selling counterfeit high school diplomas generally counterfeiting those awarded by the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Medellín. Escobar studied at the university for a short period but left without obtaining a degree.

Escobar eventually became involved in many criminal activities with Oscar Benel Aguirre, with the duo running petty street scams, selling contraband cigarettes, fake lottery tickets, and stealing cars. In the early 1970s, prior to entering the drug trade, Escobar acted as a thief and bodyguard, allegedly earning US$100,000 by kidnapping and holding a Medellín executive for ransom. Escobar began working for Alvaro Prieto, a contraband smuggler who operated around Medellín, aiming to fulfill a childhood ambition to have COL $1 million by the time he was 22. He is known to have had a bank deposit of COL 100 million (more than US$3 million), when he turned 26.

Escobar’s early prominence came during the “Marlboro Wars,” in which he played a high-profile role in the control of Colombia’s smuggled cigarette market. This episode proved to be a valuable training ground for the future narcotics kingpin.

As a young man, Escobar told friends and family that he wanted to become president of Colombia. Yet as he saw it, his path to wealth and legitimacy lay in crime.

Just a small reminder, I have been using various internet sources, therefore most of it ain't even my writings, these are the things I have come to know after reading.

Most of the source is Wikipedia!

The topic was so interesting, that it made me want to share it with ya'll.

Pablo Escobar > Quotes

“Life is full of surprises, some good, some not so good.”

“All empires are created of blood and fire.”

“There are two hundred million idiots, manipulated by a million intelligent men.”

“I can replace things, but I could never replace my wife and kids.”

“Everyone has a price, the important thing is to find out what it is.”

“Sometimes I feel like God…when I order someone killed – they die the same day.”

“I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States.”

“The men of always aren't interested in the children of never.”

“There can only be one king.”