Pablo Escobar and his Medellin Cartel dominated the cocaine trade at the height of his power, earning an estimated $420 million a week and making him one of the world’s wealthiest people.
With that amount of money, everybody would think his wife and kids lived in the most comfortable luxurious places, wanting nothing.
But being an outlaw, a fugitive, and a hunted man by the United States of America, the family life was far from quiet and peaceful.
While on the run, he reportedly burned $2 million to keep his daughter warm. Even after he died, his wife Maria Victoria Henao has not been able to escape his ghost.
When Maria Victoria Henao first met his future husband, she described him as a sweet, affectionate gentleman. Of course, she talked about the man who would later become a cocaine kingpin, Pablo Escobar.
She was only a 12-year-old girl, and he was 23. At that time, Escobar had already moved on from petty crimes and into the more lucrative illegal drugs business. She ran for her life just months before Escobar was gunned down.
10 /10 Becoming Mrs. Escobar
Maria Victoria Henao met Pablo Escobar in 1973; the couple married three years later. He was Maria’s first and only love of her life.
Maria was born and raised in a male chauvinist culture in which women were taught to follow their husbands without asking questions or challenging their decisions.
Since the marriage took place when she was 15, it is safe to say that she grew up molded by Escobar to be a devoted wife to him and dedicated mother to their children and look away from his illicit business dealings.
9 /10 Family Disapproval
The wedding ceremony was held in the Santisima Trinidad church in Palmira on March 29, 1976. It was not as celebratory as Maria would have expected.
No one from her family and her husband’s was in attendance. Underneath the joyful smile for the promise that Escobar would take care of her for life, she felt an overwhelming fear for the disapproval of her parents and siblings.
In between those dreadful mixed feelings, there was Pablo, who looked sincerely happy and smiled at her in such a way that she couldn’t help but respond in kind.