The Goalie Who Faced Pablo Escobar’s Empire

During the summer of the 1994 World Cup, Colombia's star keeper was the go-between in a drug hostage situation. When he then stood trial for taking part in a kidnapping, Esquire sent a reporter to investigate what is now one of the greatest what-ifs in the country's history.

The Goalie Who Faced Pablo Escobar's Empire The rival Columbian drug lords Pablo Escobar and Carlos Molina Yepes had one thing in common besides their enthusiasm for the marketing possibilities of cocaine: a love for the game of soccer. Before he went underground, Escobar was known in Medellín merely as a local politician, a member of parliament who was more at home on the terraces of the city's stadiums, appraising the talents of players who had grown up in the roughneck neighborhoods nearby. So notorious was his passion for fútbol that even after he vanished, there were Elvis-like sightings of Escobar in the stadiums of Medellín. His investment in the club Atlético Nacional de Medellín, through his testaferros, his front men, was said to be vast. For the local soccer team was one of his toys, like his imported giraffes and rhino, and it was said that many star players were enriched by his favors. Molina, like Escobar, haunted the terraces. He, too, operated behind testaferros as an investor in Nacional. As such, he knew the players intimately—what their moves were on the field and who their associates were off it. This was knowledge that would prove invaluable when Molina's fifteen-year-old daughter, Claudia, was kidnapped while out walking in Medellín one afternoon last spring. Within days, the suspicion grew that Molina's fellow soccer fan and former business partner, Escobar himself, had engineered the abduction. Read the Full Story It's Time We Let James Dean Be the Queer Icon He Is For more than half a century, a debate over the star's sexuality has failed to fade. Isn't it time we embraced the truth? Read the Full Story The Irrefutable Case for Coasters—Specifically, These Merino Wool Felt Coasters A beer lasts a couple minutes, but a cup ring lasts forever. Read the Full Story 'Zoolander' at 20: How a Post-9/11 Flop Became the Comedy Everyone's Still Quoting Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, and Milla Jovovich take us inside the making of a hilarious—and dare we say, prescient—classic. Read the Full Story Owen Wilson Is Doing Great, Thanks Three days with the star of 'Loki,' 'The French Dispatch,' and all those movies you know by heart. Read the Full Story One Last Round With My Brother, Tim After he died, our regular foursome, down one man, took his ashes to Pinehurst No. 2 to play the course he loved and say goodbye. Read the Full Story Follow Us Unsubscribe | Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection esquire.com ©2021 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019