Los Pepes

Los Pepes, a name derived from the Spanish phrase "Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar" ("Persecuted by Pablo Escobar"), was a short-lived vigilante group composed of enemies of Pablo Escobar. They waged a small-scale war against the Medellín Cartel in the early 1990s, which ended in 1993 with Escobar's death.

While the name suggested that all, or most, members of Los Pepes were previously persecuted by Escobar, most likely only a handful of the group's members had suffered at the hands of the notorious drug kingpin. Many members were allegedly rival drug traffickers. Los Pepes were allegedly funded by the rival Cali Cartel, the Castaño Brothers as well as other unknown persons or groups, allegedly including the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

There are reports that Los Pepes had ties to some members of the Colombian National Police, especially the Search Bloc (Bloque de Búsqueda), with whom they exchanged information in order to execute their activities against Escobar. According to documents released to the public by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2008, "Colombian National Police director general Miguel Antonio Gómez Padilla said "that he had directed a senior CNP intelligence officer to maintain contact with Fidel Castaño, paramilitary leader of Los Pepes, for the purposes of intelligence collection.'"

After Escobar's death in 1993, several of their leaders eventually went on to become the heads of a national paramilitary alliance in Colombia, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a group that was formed not only for the purpose of fighting the Cartel but also the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla group. The Castaño Brothers (Carlos 1965-2004, Vicente and Fidel, who went missing in 1994) were founders of several paramilitary groups and the driving force behind the AUC's creation.

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