Escobar’s Hitman: From Drug Dealer Murder to YouTube Sensation

by Dec 26, 2022Crime, Justice, Videos

Imagine working for Pablo Escobar, and coming out as a hero. That is exactly what John Jairo Velasquez Vasquez is. Known as “Popeye”, he was a hitman for Escobar in the heydays of the infamous Medellin drug cartel.

After serving a sentence in prison for 22 years, he is now a free man. And he works as a YouTube star. Imagine John Gotti coming out of jail and becoming a YouTube star. That is Popeye for the Colombian people.

By the time he was arrested in 1992, he had killed more than 250 people with his own hands, and ordered a murder of another 3000 people. He even killed his own girlfriend. He detonated more than 250 car bombings, organized kidnappings of people such as Andres Pastrana (later a president of Colombia).

Now, at the age of 54, he is trying to rebrand himself as the truth-telling evangelist in a series of Spanish-language videos. He posts these videos on YouTube, hoping that he will tell the stories that happened. And with that, his nickname changed to Popeye Arrepentido (Remorseful Popeye).

About Riyan H.

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