Evaristo Porras

  • Died: March 3, 2010
  • Location: Bogota

Tribute & Message From The Family


Message From The Family

Former Medellin drug trafficker dies at 62

(Associated Press)

By LIBARDO CARDONA

Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA

Evaristo Porras, a former high-flying Medellin cartel drug trafficker associated with Pablo Escobar in the 1980s, has died at age 62, reportedly in economic ruin.

Porras' death was confirmed by the Gaviria funeral home in Bogota, which said he was buried on Friday. It was first reported Tuesday by the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo.

"He died of a heart attack in his Bogota home literally broke" on March 3, the paper said, citing one of Porras' sons.

Porras controlled lucrative trafficking routes on Colombia's southeastern border with Peru in the 1980s when much partially processed cocaine was being flown in from the neighboring nation.

Living regally in the Amazon city of Leticia during the Medellin cartel's heyday, Porras built a likeness there of the mansion featured in the U.S. television series Dallas.

He first became known in 1983, when his signature appeared on a check that Escobar alleged was received by anti-drug crusader and then-Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara.

Lara was assassinated in 1984 on Escobar's orders and Porras was arrested shortly thereafter and imprisoned on a drug-trafficking conviction. He was released in 2006 and tried in vain to recover some of his lost wealth.

A former cellmate of Porras, Gustavo Sastoque, told The Associated Press that Porras told him he had Parkinson's disease "and on top of that had a bad heart."

Porras once tried to commit suicide with an overdose of pills while in jail, Sastoque added in a telephone interview.

Escobar led one of the world's leading cocaine cartels from Colombia in the 1980s. He and his allies ordered the killings of politicians, judges, journalists, and hundreds of others who opposed them. He at one point offered a bounty of more than $4,000 for any police officer killed in Medellin, his hometown. More than 100 were slain.

Condolence & Memory Journal

I feel satsified after reading that one.

Posted by Gildas - uRDbeyMroeFigj, MD - ExCwUDMeeRn   September 30, 2011

I spent time with Everisto when he was a prisoner in the Lurigancho Center for Social Re-adaptation in Lima Peru. I was sorry to hear of his death at such a relatively young age but as the Sheriff said in "No Country for Old Men" it was due to "natural causes" - that is, "natural" to the kind of work he was in.
Everisto was always an outstanding, and upstanding young man, who made his way a long ways in a hostile world. I had great respect for him and especially the way he organized his own break out from CRAS Lurigancho with the blood injected up his penis for purposes of impressing the (already duly paid) medical Junta's coming to "visit" him in the Clinica. I described all of this in books 4 (Rivers of Blood) and 5 (High Finance - South American Style) (find them in a library near you by going to the website http://www.wordcat.org and typing in my name Smith, Jason W.) (soon to be available to all on the internet and the story in a new feature film). He and Rodriguez Gacha were my two favorite Colombians when I was in that joint and I hope their families are doing well today.
Good luck Everisto! Your friend Jason. (drjasonsmith@hotmail.com)

Posted by Jason W. Smith, Ph.D. - Los Angeles, CA - friend   November 23, 2010

Default Album