Sins of My Father (Pecados de mi padre)

Ready.

Down! Piss off!

After Pablo Escobar's death,

his son, Juan Pablo, changed his name to Sebastian Marroquin,

and moved to Buenos Aires.

After 12 years of living in exile,

this is the first time Sebastian and his mother,

Maria Isabel Santos, have decided to break their silence

and share their persona! mes.

This is my father when he took his first Holy Communion.

I cherish this picture very much.

For me, it's like my company at night. It sleeps with me.

Nobody would be able to recognize the boy in the picture.

And I'd be able to show it to all my friends hers

or anybody I knew.

It was like the only moment of honesty I could share with my friends

when I showed them the picture of my father,

and the only moment I didn't fear my identity was discovered.

I don't ever tell anybody who my father was

If they find out or ask me, we talk.

If they don't...

I'm nobody.

My father was considered to be somebody

for his temerity, for his fame, whatever.

He was the best at cheating.

The deception started right now.

If we planned to play Monopoly at night,

he started cheating hours earlier.

He went or sent someone to the game box to take bills.

He spread them around.

He knew were he would sit at night in the living room,

so he'd put bills under the carpet, the coffee table,

under the sofa where he'd sit, next to him...

Of course, hours later, we sat down and opened the box for the first time.

We handed out the bills and stuff according to the rules of the game.

Everything was neat.

This man had terrible luck, but he was always loaded with money.

I've learned a lot of things from my father, a lot of nice things.

The most important one is that if I want to live,

I have to do the opposite of him.

That was my lesson.

If I wanted to be dead, and I would be already,

I would've followed his lead.

Sebastian was only 16 years old when in December, 1993,

his father was killed in Medellin,

the city that had seen him grow up and become powerful.

A female reporter broke the news to Sebastian.

- Hello. - Hello. Don't bug us now.

We're watching TV and think the news about my dad is false.

The police has just confirmed it.

He was at the Obelisco Mall, in the center of Medellin.

What was he doing there?

I don't know. The police have just given an official report.

What a fucking day.

We don't wanna talk right now.

I am going to kill all of those sons of bitches who killed him.

I'm going to kill them myself

Being part of this family, I know that I, Pablo Escobar,

have lost the right to get angry forever.

I shouldn't have gotten angry as I did.

I shouldn't have lashed out as I did the day my father died.

In a violent situation like that,

any teenager could have reacted the same way,

but I did, and being an Escobar, that caused a great impact.

If they do something mean to me, I can't get angry.

"You are Pablo Escobar's son, so you are dangerous."

I'm not the right person to justify my father's actions.

And I think every time I try to get involved,

that's exactly when I go wrong and start believing

it is me who has to account for my father's actions.

It'd be really easy for us as relatives to criticize Pablo Escobar, the person,

even more vigorously.

We'd befriend people more easily, but that wouldn't be honest.

People cannot forbid us to love my father.

They cannot deny we've had an affectionate relationship with him,

an ordinary family relationship.

I think there's something more important

than criticizing Pablo Escobar so that people will like us.

I think we have to explore that story,

understand it from beginning to end,

and I think we have to make society aware

so that it won't happen again.

Present

NAPOLES ESTATE

He had an encyclopedia of wildlife

from where he'd choose the animals he wanted to have at the estate.

We arrived at immense green areas where they'd have certain species.

We looked at them, and he chose the ones he wanted.

I remember he told me, "My partner will kill me

when he finds out l spent $2 million buying animals."

There was a tremendous amount of luxury at the estate.

We had everything.

There was nothing else to spend the money on.

I think he was eager to spend money for enjoyment, to amuse us.

But there came a time in life

when there were no more things to be surprised about.

There was nothing else to buy.

He bought a macaw for a million dollars.

And I bought a painting for a million pesos.

I'd say to him, "Listen, art remains alive,

however, a macaw will die."

Those were our arguments.

Those were my toys.

The little cars we used to compete with down the house racetrack.

People think I was a spoiled rich kid, and they are right.

I had everything. I asked for something and got it.

That's how I was raised, surrounded by excesses, by luxury...

In that incoherent world.

My father was at his peak during my childhood.

Our visit to this unique place has come to an end.

The philosophy behind this fabulous estate

is based on the love for life.

It looks toward the future,

enhancing human quality,

preserving nature.

At that time, cocaine was supposedly

the best thing that could be happening to society.

It started to be considered as something glamorous,

as something that had to be followed like a fashion.

It was set.

But it was something global.

It didn’t just happen in Colombian society.

For my father, working was the easiest thing in the world

because he'd travel and stay in the best hotel in Miami.

He'd rent two or three whole floors.

He made up the Fredonia Petroleum Company.

It was a fantasy name of a town

where there's no petroleum in Colombia.

He worked normally there.

He met people and did everything he wanted

from the best hotel in Miami in plain sight.

It was obvious he met with notorious American gangsters.

It was absurd for them to believe the company story.

However, they went unnoticed.

He entered the country with money. He entered and left.

He declared it as his.

He entered with $4 million once,

on another occasion with $700,000.

Nobody said anything to him.

They'd say, "Welcome to the U.S., Mr. Pablo Escobar."

He went there, bought stuff, and did his business...

Legally, everything he did, he did it using his name.

He didn't conceal his identity to enter the U.S. with money

and buy property there.

Everybody dreams of going to Disney.

The father became a child in that park with Sebastian.

He went up in every roller coaster even if he was scared to death of them

because he didn't like roller coasters.

But he did everything he could to see Sebastian happy.

In the early '80s, Escobar was at the top of the world.

He had the family he had always dreamed of

and he was the boss of the Medellin Cartel,

which controlled 80% of the world's cocaine market.

Escobar was already one of the richest men in Colombia.

He used part of his wealth to help the less fortunate.

THESE ARE LONG-LASTING WORKS THANKS...

His charity work included the building of dozens of football fields.

You plan to build 50 fields.

Yes, in every municipality, because we want them all--

every neighborhood, no matter how marginal they are--

To participate in and benefit from these programs.

Do you consider yourself Antioquia's Robin Hood?

Not at all.

FOR WORKS THAT LAST SPORTS YOUTH

-CONGRATULATES PABLO ESCOBAR - But it's a very interesting name.

Those who know Robin Hood's story

know perfectly well that he fought for and defended the poor

His most ambitious project

was the construction of hundreds of houses

destined for families who lived in a municipal dumpster

The complex, known as Barrio Pablo Escobar, still exists.

There are more than 5,000 people living here.

Of course, we're very grateful to our fellow Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

We believe we'll be very happy as of March.

We'll be transferred to La Milagrosa then,

and we'll feel very happy.

What else could a man who had discovered a magic formula

to make money dedicate himself to?

How could he get more power

than the power money was already giving him?

I think that's when he decided to get involved in politics...

To get the power from the masses.

Today, we're the new political force of the department.

We're the liberal hope of the Antioquian people.

Escobar had even bigger plans.

He wanted political power

That's why he decided to support the recently formed party

New Liberalism, funded by Luis Carlos Galan

and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla.

Soon after Sebastian agreed to be part of this project,

we traveled to Bogota to meet Rodrigo Lara.

Twenty-five years earlier, his father had been

the first to publicly condemn Escobar.

I never talk about my father in public.

It's very weird. I mean, I talk about my father because I have to.

It takes a very special setting for that to happen.

He used to say that they, Galen and he, went to Middle Magdalena.

He told me they didn't understand why they received so much support,

why there were so many people so eager to support them

when they'd never set foot in those municipalities before.