Parts of ranch of drug lord Escobar granted to women victims of Colombian conflict

ISTANBUL

A portion of late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s former ranch — a symbol of his immense wealth, known for its notorious “cocaine hippos” — will be handed over to women who were victims of the country’s armed conflict, President Gustavo Petro recently announced.

In the late 1980s, Escobar, Colombia’s most notorious drug trafficker and leader of the Medellin cartel, amassed a fortune valued at $25 billion by Forbes, making him one of the world’s richest men. He transformed his Hacienda Napoles estate in northwest Antioquia into a sprawling compound with exotic animals, luxury features, and even a replica plane commemorating his first cocaine shipment to the US.

After Escobar was killed in a 1993 shootout, the estate was abandoned, later converted into a theme park, and has now been reassigned to victims of Colombia’s long-running conflict.

“We have begun to recover the Napoles estate for the victims,” Petro said Wednesday through the US social media company X.

Authorities said 120 hectares of the land have been allocated to local female farmers.

Felipe Harman, head of the National Land Agency, called the decision “a historic victory for the women who never stopped fighting,” according to the Guardian.

“It is an immense joy to finally celebrate,” said Millinery Correa, one of the beneficiaries, in a video by the state-run agency. “I feel very happy because today there are women who have hope, who have land for life.”

Laura Bonilla of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation said Escobar “bought and seized” the land to create an “empire almost completely independent from Colombia.” She added that Petro’s Oct. 1 move “was to give back the land, and also the dignity, to those who had lost everything.”

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