Colonel Ramirez and Canó:-PART2

In August, Ramirez and his classmates went to Europe for a month, where they visited other law enforcement and did work-shops. With his luggage crammed with tons of information and reports, Ramirez returned excited to apply the knowledge in the hope of enhancing and modernising the police force.

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While awaiting his new career, scheduled for the end of the year, Ramirez did jobs at police headquarters and also worked as a consultant with foreign governments fighting the War on Drugs. In Bolivia, as part of the DEA's Operation Blast Furnace, Ramirez was finally able to strike back at Pablo by helping to find some of Pablo's labs, which the authorities burned down. Returning to the thick of the action lifted his spirits, but the threat from Pablo - particularly to his family-gnawed at him.

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On October 21, 1986, Foxy was killed in a gunfight in Medellín. In light of this development, Ernesto told Ramirez that Pablo had probably cancelled the contract, and that it was unlikely that anyone would attempt to kill Ramirez in the wake of Foxy's death as a new hit team would have to start from scratch, gathering information and staking out locations. The safe house with the Renault out-side had been raided many times. The raids had produced no leads. No further sightings of the strangers led by the curly-haired man had occurred.

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Feeling safer, Ramirez gave up his body-guards. On a daily basis, he spoke to Ernesto. Each day, there were no new developments, so he relaxed more.

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On Thursday, November 13, 1986, Ramirez was invited to a family dinner scheduled for Monday. Even though the thirty-mile drive seemed comparatively risk-free, Ramirez said that he would have to give it more thought.

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On Friday, he received a ten-minute call from Ernesto. After hanging up, he turned to his wife. With his face transformed into a relaxed state that had been absent for a long time, he said, "They've suspended the contract."

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With the threat gone, the family looked forward to the upcoming get-together. It was the kind of occasion that they'd learned to appreciate after everything they'd been through. Finally, things were back to normal.

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On Sunday afternoon, they left the armoured vehicle in the garage and set off in a Toyota minivan with a MAC-10 on the floor by one of Ramirez's sons. With so much holiday traffic, it would be difficult for any pursuers to set a trap. After stopping to eat at a ranch near Bogotá, they drove for another hour to a friend's house, where they stayed overnight.

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At 10 am on Monday, they set off in high spirits for the ranch belonging to the brother of Ramirez. The four family members hadn't taken a trip together like this in a long time. The ranch was packed with family members in a celebratory mood, anticipating a feast.

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In-between eating pigs' knuckles, Ramirez told stories to everybody sat around outside on the lawn. He was proud of his imminent promotion. It now looked like he was going to become the police's chief of personnel. Excitedly, he described how he was going to employ many of his former men in his new department, and encourage everyone to keep fighting the traffickers. It would be like old times.

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After 4 pm, Ramirez said it was a good time to leave in order to beat the holiday traffic returning to Bogotá. As they set off, multiple cars - that had been parked in the area for hours - followed the minivan.

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At 5:43 pm, the minivan encountered heavy traffic on a highway bridge. Failing to notice their pursuers, they crept along in the right-hand lane. Ramirez and his wife discussed how they were getting on in years, and how they'd like to spend the rest of their lives together. When they were halfway over the bridge, a red Renault 18 approached their left side as if overtaking the minivan. It slowed. Its occupants were watching Ramirez. One of them raised a MAC-10.

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"Get down!"

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An explosion of shots ripped into Ramirez, forcing him forwards, where he stayed slumped as if dead.

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His two sons had been shot: one in the hand; the other in the thighs, producing lots of blood; nevertheless, the latter son tried to find the MAC-10. Hit in the knee, his wife reached for the steering wheel. Veering towards the side of the bridge, the minivan stopped at a curb.

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The Renault halted in front of the van. Three smartly-dressed passengers in their twenties got out, brandishing MAC-10s. While two remained at the Renault, the third approached the van.

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Bleeding from the leg, Ramirez's wife was crawling across the bridge, hoping to get to the other side of the van to assist her husband. She looked up at an assassin. "Please don't kill me."

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Leaving her unharmed, the hit man opened the driver's door and blasted Ramirez. He got in the Renault, which sped away.

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The day after the murder of Ramirez, the US authorities went public with a super indictment of the top traffickers - the Ochoa brothers, Pablo, Lehder and Gacha - charging them with, among other things, producing fifty-eight tons of cocaine from 1978 to 1985:

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From as early as 1978 to the date of the return of this indictment there existed an international criminal narcotics enterprise based in Medellín, Colombia, South America, known by various names, including "The Medellín Cartel" (hereinafter "Cartel"), which consisted of controlling members of major international cocaine manufacturing and distributing organizations… Through the Cartel, major cocaine organizations were able to pool resources, including raw materials, clandes- tine cocaine conversion laboratories, aircraft, vessels, transportation facilities, distribution networks, and cocaine tO facilitate international narcotics trafficking.

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The indictment made more headlines in Colombia than America, especially with the newspaper El Espectador, which published multiple stories. It was the same newspaper that had published Pablo's mugshot, seriously harming his political goals. It employed one of the bravest Colombians still willing to speak out against Pablo and the traffickers. His name was Cano, a highly respected sixty-one-year-old newsman with white hair. He wrote this in a column:

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Legalise drug-trafficking? That would be like legalising and justifying all the collateral activities: money laundering, the assassination of Supreme Court justices, of Cabinet ministers, of judges, and of so many other persons who, by doing their duty have fallen victim to the narcotics traffickers and their hired killers.

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On December 17, 1986, Cano returned to his office from a lunch break, laden with Christmas gifts. After working late, he left the building in the evening. With the gifts on the backseat, he started his station wagon and joined the traffic. He changed lanes to make a U-turn. While Cano waited for an opening to turn, a young man nearby stepped off a motorbike, placed a case on the ground an took out a MAC-10. He hurried over to Cano's car. The firing began.

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El Espectador lost ten staff members, including Cano. Its building was car-bombed twice. The cartel went after investigative reporters, political columnists, editors and anyone else who opposed them. Even a statue of Cano erected in his honour was bombed to bits in Medellín.

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In a political debate on trafficking, a voice of reason offered a solution. "The drug business will cease to be profitable for the drug traffickers," said the president of the Council of State, "if it is legalised and if the Colombian state assumes total control not only of its sale, but also of its use." As usual, his proposal was ignored.

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