President Gaviria reiterated the government's refusal to accept any conditions for Escobar's surrender, but Fiscal General Gustavo de Greiff sounded a dissenting view: "I do not see any difficulty in abiding by these requests, not as a concession but as a solution."
De Greiff was increasingly at odds with the Gaviria administration. Elected independently, unlike the American system in which the attorney general is a presidential appointee, he felt his role was to uphold the nation's laws and basic human rights. He viewed the official search for Escobar as a killing mission, and began pressing instead for Escobar's capture or surrender.
His office assumed responsibility for protecting the drug boss' immediate family, offering bodyguards (paid for and fed by the Escobars) for the apartment building where they lived in Medellin. De Greiff also pushed for investigation and prosecution of Los Pepes.
By early August 1993, the new Clinton administration overseers had noticed how neatly the dirty work of Los Pepes dovetailed with the U.S. mission against Escobar, and representatives from the Justice Department and the Pentagon flew to Bogota to demand answers.
Ambassador Morris Busby was asked directly about Los Pepes in August, when Brian Sheridan, the Clinton-appointed civilian overseer at the Pentagon for covert operations, visited Bogota. Sheridan left the meeting convinced there was no evidence linking Los Pepes to the Search Bloc.
Busby had heard about evidence to the contrary, but nothing that he found convincing. He would later say he had not seen DEA reports suggesting such a connection, including one written by agent Steve Murphy noting that "the police were cooperating with the group at some level, including sharing information."
Busby himself had written about the alleged connection a month earlier.
In a secret State Department cable titled "Unraveling the Pepes Tangled Web," dated Aug. 1, just days before the meeting with Sheridan (a cable Sheridan would not see until months later), the ambassador noted that he had met with President Gaviria on April 13 to "express his strongest reservations about the group." Busby wrote that he had discovered that Fidel Castano, one of the suspected Los Pepes leaders, was in constant contact with the national police.
The memo said Busby requested that all police contact with Castano cease, and he was assured that it would.
Concerned that the manhunt he was leading might somehow be linked to the vigilantes of Los Pepes, U.S. Ambassador Morris Busby wrote a long, secret memo to the State Department in August 1993.
Busby explained that he had warned the Colombian government to sever any ties with members of the vigilante group, which had been killing as many as five people a day.
The ambassador wasn't convinced the alleged connection was true, but there was evidence that Los Pepes was working closely with the elite Colombian police unit, known as the Search Bloc, which was partially funded by the U.S. government and guided by American military officers, law enforcement agents and CIA operatives - all of whom reported to Busby.
In his memo, Busby reported that Colombian President Cesar Gaviria had called a meeting of his key advisers in April and ordered that any contacts between the Search Bloc and Los Pepes be terminated at once. After that meeting, Busby wrote, the president called a top police commander who was not suspected of links to the death squad and ordered him to "pass the word" that Los Pepes must be dissolved immediately.
"Gaviria's effort to send such an important message to Los Pepes via one of his key police commanders . . . indicated that the president believed police officials were in contact with leaders of Los Pepes," Busby wrote.
His memo went on to note that the message clearly got through: The very next day, Los Pepes publicly announced that the group was disbanding.
But it never happened. Los Pepes soon resumed the campaign of terror against Escobar, and evidence of a link to the Search Bloc continued to mount.
By July 29 - three days before Busby wrote his memo - the ambassador was told by Colombia's top prosecutor, Fiscal General Gustavo de Greiff, that there was sufficient evidence to issue warrants against the Search Bloc commander, Col. Hugo Martinez, and half a dozen police officials. Busby's memo said the charges included accepting bribes, drug trafficking, kidnapping, torture and "very possibly murder."
The memo said de Greiff had told a Drug Enforcement Administration official that the key witness against Martinez was a prosecutor who had been jailed on corruption charges. The prosecutor said he had been paid bribes by Martinez, with the money coming from the Cali drug cartel, Escobar's hated rivals. Martinez vehemently denied the allegation.
Deep into the memo, Busby revealed that the fiscal general had made a stunning allegation: Not only were Los Pepes and the Search Bloc working hand in hand, but Los Pepes had taken charge of the hunt for Pablo Escobar.
De Greiff believed that Los Pepes, which surfaced with "harmless" attacks against residences of Escobar's relatives, later began murdering and kidnapping citizens whose only crime was their relationship with Escobar, Busby wrote. The fiscal general said the police, whose "tacit support" helped Los Pepes get started, then "went too far" and moved from simple intelligence-sharing to violent attacks against civilians, according to Busby's memo.
At this point, Busby quoted the fiscal general as saying: "Police officials were probably already too deeply involved with Los Pepes to withdraw. . . . Not only were some members of the Search Bloc and Los Pepes running joint operations, some of which resulted in kidnappings and possibly killings, but that the leadership of Los Pepes was calling the shots, rather than the police."
The prosecutor supplying this evidence had worked with the Search Bloc at its headquarters in Medellin - by law, a representative of the fiscal general's office had to authorize all the unit's searches, seizures and arrests - and had been charged with selling an expensive car seized during a raid. In an effort to help his case by assisting prosecutors, he had described torture sessions and murders committed by Col. Martinez's men.
Still, Gaviria had decided not to have Martinez arrested, for fear "the police might not obey" the order, Busby's memo said. Gaviria was also concerned that a public scandal involving the Search Bloc would effectively end the hunt for Escobar, conceding another huge victory to the drug boss.
"It would be terrible, if after all the deaths and upheaval in the country, Escobar was victorious," the memo said. But Busby also noted that de Greiff had promised that charges would be brought against Martinez and the others eventually, "even if they are national heroes."
Busby's memo said that he had pressed the fiscal general to act, saying that if there was good evidence against the officers they should be replaced immediately.
"The investigation could then proceed at its own pace and the would maintain the integrity of the unit," Busby wrote. "Justice would be served and the effort against Escobar kept intact. Additionally, if tainted officers, at least one of whom was a principal contact of ours, were kept in place, we would have no choice but to withdraw our support for the unit."
Busby then met with Colombia's defense minister, who said the allegations had been falsely spread by Escobar. Busby said Gen. Octavio Vargas, administrative head of the Search Bloc, promised him that Martinez would be transferred and that charges against the colonel would he handled by a military tribunal. Busby's memo promised that the embassy was "aggressively pursuing this matter" and that his "thinly veiled threats to withdraw our support" seemed to have been heeded.