Peter McAleese, the Scottish mercenary hired to kill Pablo Escobar

In 1989, a team of British mercenaries, led by Scot Peter McAleese, traveled to the heart of the criminal empire of the most dangerous man in the world with the aim of assassinating him.

Pablo Escobar He was the leader of the Medellín cartel in Colombia and one of the richest criminals in history.

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It was the largest manufacturer and distributor of cocaine in the world, being responsible for up to 80% of the global trade in this drug.

McAleese, a former agent of the SAS – an elite group of the British Army – was hired by a rival drug cartel to eliminate Escobar.

The mercenary died on March 19, aged 81.

In the documentary Killing Escobarwhich premiered in 2021, tells the story of that mission – which ended in failure – and the man behind it.

Pablo Escobar was one of the richest and most dangerous bosses in the world. (Getty Images).

Filmmaker David Whitney said McAleese, who was born in Glasgow in 1942, was a “complex man” who had great “inner restlessness”.

He was raised in the Riddrie neighborhood, in the shadow of Barlinnie prison, where his father – “a very tough, violent man” – spent time.

In the documentary, McAleese said: “I was trained to kill by the Army, but the fighting instinct came from Glasgow.”

McAleese claims he left town and enlisted in the Army at age 17 to find a way to channel his aggression.

He enlisted in the parachute regiment and later became a member of the 22nd SAS regiment.

McAleese in the South African defense force in the 1980s. (TWO RIVERS MEDIA).

He served in Borneo with the SAS, taking part in a fierce war fought in the jungle, before retiring from the British Army in 1969, a decision he described as the worst thing he did in his life.

McAleese was adrift, moving from one job to another “without adapting.” He said he felt alone and that his aggression got worse.

The man became so aggressive that I was in prison for attacking a girlfriend.

Upon regaining his freedom, McAleese tried to recreate the “thrill” of his Army career, seeking to act as a “mercenary” in the civil war in Angola and later in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), as well as in South Africa.

He met Dave Tomkins in Angola in 1976. Tomkins was not an ordinary soldier, he knew how to do business to sell weapons.

The two became great friends and it was Tomkims who approached McAleese to offer to take part in the mission to kill Escobar.

Jorge Salcedo, who was part of the Cali Poster – a rival drug trafficking group in Colombia – was coordinating the attack and wanted Tomkins to recruit a team to carry it out.

Identification showing a young Peter McAleese, during his years as a mercenary in Africa in the 1970s. (TWO RIVERS MEDIA).

The training

McAleese was the first person he tried to recruit.

“They don’t ask you to assassinate Pablo Escobar unless you have the necessary experience,” McAleese said.

“I had no moral conflicts about killing him. I never considered it murder. “I saw it as a goal,” he said.

The Cali cartel trusted Escobar he could be murdered when he went to his luxurious Hacienda Nápoles.

The enormous estate included an entire zoo filled with exotic animals, a collection of antique and luxurious cars, a private airport, and a bullring.

McAleese flew over the ranch to reconnoitre the site and agreed that this could be accomplished. The mission was ambitious.

Tomkins recruited a team of 12 mercenaries. There were people who had worked with him before and people who were recommended to him.

Jorge Salcedo helped them pass customs controls and the Cali cartel financed their stay.

Each of the men would receive $5,000 a month plus expenses, but Tomkins earned $1,000 a day.

Once in Colombia, the mercenaries trained to carry out the attack. (TWO RIVERS MEDIA).

The documentary had access to videos recorded by Tomkins which include scenes in which men are seen playing with large bundles of money.

At first they remained in the city of Cali, but there they ran the risk of attracting too much attention, so they moved to a farm in the rural area, where they received a large arsenal of weapons.

“It was like Christmas. Everything we needed in terms of weapons was there,” McAleese said.

The mercenaries trained hard for their mission, but only Tomkins and McAleese knew who their target was.

Before they were informed, one member of the group decided to leave and was allowed to return home. He sold his story to newspapers, but did not reveal names or give details of the operation.

As the time for the attack approached, the men moved their training to the jungle, where they could practice with guns and bombs without being heard.

This photo shows the group of mercenaries during training for the assault. (TWO RIVERS MEDIA).

The attack plan

The attack plan involved using two helicopters to transport them to the Hacienda Nápoles complex, where the mercenaries had to fight their way through Escobar’s large security detail, kill him and bring back his head as a trophy.

When they were warned by an informant that Escobar was on his farm, they set off towards their objective. But the attack would never happen.

The helicopter carrying McAleese and Tomkins crashed while flying low in the clouds over the Andes. The pilot was killed.

The others survived, but McAleese was too injured to leave the scene.

Suffering great pain, he lay on the mountainside for three days until he was rescued.

Escobar heard about the attack plan and sent his men into the mountains to meet them.

“If Pablo had caught me, I would have died a long, drawn out, painful death,” McAleese said.

Instead, he escaped and tried to fulfill the promises he made to God while lying on the mountainside.

Photo of Peter McAleese at age 78, when he recorded the documentary. (TWO RIVERS MEDIA).

McAleese acknowledged that he was a “dirty, shameless man; rubbish” and he realized he needed to change.

But he said what he regretted was not his actions in war zones, but rather his failures as a husband and father.

“I have a lot of regrets and none of them have to do with the soldier part of my life,” he said at age 78, as part of the documentary.

At that moment he said he had found “peace”.

Meanwhile, Pablo Escobar was shot dead in Medellín in 1993, while trying to escape authorities.

*This information was originally published on March 12, 2021 and updated following the death of Peter McAleese.

Source: Elcomercio