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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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120489
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12048900.020
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1990-09-19
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WORLD, Page 61World NotesCOLOMBIAWanted, but Not Found
The leaders of the powerful Medellin cocaine cartel have become
folk heroes for their ability to escape the relentless pursuit of
government security forces. Last week Pablo Escobar Gaviria, 39,
a leader of the drug ring that controls 80% of the cocaine entering
the U.S., pulled off one of the most impressive getaways. In an
operation code named Against the Fortress, some 600 police and army
troops raided a ranch 70 miles outside Medellin, but Escobar
managed to elude them.
When the police fleet of ten helicopters suddenly appeared
overhead at 6:30 a.m., one sentry ran to alert Escobar and others,
while bodyguards opened fire with semiautomatic rifles. Escobar
slipped away by running through a patch of wild cane, scuttling
across a creek with planks laid over it and, finally, jumping into
a speedboat and disappearing. A wide-scale ground and helicopter
search failed to turn up Escobar, who is included on the U.S.
Justice Department's list of the twelve most wanted Colombian drug
traffickers.