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Alejandro Acosta / Reuters
A shop worker shows a T-shirt bearing a picture of the late drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar at a store on the outskirts of Guadalajara, Mexico, on Sept. 28.
MEXICO CITY -- Nearly two decades after Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar died in a hail of bullets, his eldest son is conquering new markets in Mexico -- with a fashion line in his father's image.
Sebastian Marroquin's designer T-shirts, plastered with photos of Escobar, are hot sellers in Mexican states that are on the front lines of the country's deadly drug war.
The shirts are emblazoned with images of the Medellin cartel boss, who flooded the world with cocaine before he was shot dead in 1993.
Featuring pictures from Escobar's student ID card, driver's license and other images, the shirts cost between $65 and $95 -- a small fortune in a country where about half of the population lives in poverty.
"We're not trying to make an apology for drug trafficking, to glamorize it in the way that the media does," said Marroquin, 39, who was born Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, but changed his name to avoid reprisals after his father's death.
'What's your future looking like?'
The shirts carry messages to provoke reflection but there were claims they reinforce the fascination with drug cartel culture in Mexico and the region.
One bearing Escobar's student card reads: "What's your future looking like?" while a design emblazoned with his driver's license warns: "Nice pace, but wrong way."
Alejandro Acosta / Reuters
A selection of the shirts featuring the late Colombian cocaine kingpin.
Marroquin was the subject of a film, called “Sins of My Father,” that told the story of Escobar through his eyes. It also chronicled how he contacted the sons of his father’s most prominent murder victims, Colombia’s former Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla and liberal politician Luis Carlos Galan.
In a posting on the website of U.K.-based charity the Forgiveness Project, Marroquin wrote that “each time I had the opportunity to get close to an enemy or a victim of my father I felt the moral obligation to ask for their forgiveness for the harm my father had caused them.”
“It wasn’t because I felt responsible, but because I felt a duty to support these families in their grief and wanted also the opportunity to tell them my own personal story,” he added.
Drug lord who led cartel founded by Pablo Escobar headed to US for trial
The cotton shirts, which went on sale last year in Mexico, are selling well in stores in Culiacan, the capital of western Sinaloa state, which is home of Mexico's most wanted trafficker, Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
The clothing is also on sale in Guadalajara in western Jalisco state, long a refuge for drug traffickers, which has been swept up in Mexico's raging drug violence. About 60,000 lives have been lost in the last six years.
An analyst warned that the increasingly popular “Escobar Henao” clothing line simply reinforces an already widespread fascination with the symbols of cartel culture such as marijuana leaves and AK-47s among youngsters in Mexico.
Mexico's drug war is also part of a drug culture with roots in music, movies and even religion
"I see it as a strong symbolic product," said Vicente Sanchez, a researcher at Mexico's Colegio de la Frontera Norte. "The state ... has to have a better grasp of things directed at young people, as that's the way that these anti-values gain ground.”
Read more international stories from NBC News
But Marroquin, who has stores in Austria, Guatemala and the United States as well as Mexico, dismissed such criticism, pointing to others who cashed in on his legacy.
There are plenty of books on Escobar's exploits and even a Colombian television soap opera, "Pablo Escobar: The Boss of Evil" that aired this year.
"Those who set out to criticize me are the same who have profited from the story, life and name of Pablo Escobar," Marroquin told Reuters in an interview on Skype.
More Mexico coverage from NBC News
The 39-year-old has said he held off opening stores in Colombia out of respect for victims of drug crime there.
Despite the success of the clothing line in Mexico and other markets, Marroquin insisted that there has been an enduring downside to his father's legacy that has followed the family in the 19 years since his death.
"In 1994, we left Colombia ... but because of our surname, we couldn't get a passport anywhere in the world ... for the crime of having Escobar DNA," Marroquin, who lives in Argentina, said. "We have lived liked criminals without being them."
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
The whole culture is just so screwed up . The sad thing is the whole culture is whacked out. Drugs, Money, Murders. Sad.
you do know where the biggest drug market in the world is, right? secondly, he's selling t-shirts, you clown... not drugs, money, and murders. you wouldn't be able to columbia using google maps.
I want one. I'll put it in the lineup with my Adolf Hitler, Che Guevara, and Yasser Arafat T-shirts.
bill,
It's not the selling of t-shirts but what is ON the t-shirts, you clown.
denver bill 2, Che was a hero to the Cuban working people, helping to overthrow the US-backed dictator Batista and stop their exploitation. He doesn't belong in that list.
"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl! Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become … " Che Guevara
You can visit therealcuba.com to find hundreds of documented murders either committed by or ordered by Che. Therefore, I claim he does belong on the list. Some people regarded Hitler as a hero, too. The difference between them is a matter of degree, not of philosophy.
Hence my comment. You make my point. And since you use the word clown while simultaneously appearing to be comically challenged, allow me to introduce you to another word from the world of humor:
A buffoon is someone who is ridiculous and amusing, such as a clown or a court jester. You almost fit the definition. As soon as you learn to be amusing, I think you'll qualify.
- Ulysses S. Grant, in reference to the bloodshed during the US Civil War. His rhetoric was less bloody but the message was the same: Attack aggressively and feel no remorse.
When you're fighting evil people for a noble cause, it's not the time to be a diplomat, and the Cuban Revolution was a noble cause. I will give you the fact that, later in life, Che's bloodlust was too much for him to handle after the success of the revolution, but that doesn't take away from his integral role in the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
Denver Bill 2,
It sounds like Che Guevara was demonical possessed!
According to his writings.
I'll buy one, I did plenty of pablo's product back in the day, use to get it fresh off the boat for a while. Don't have any use for it anymore but hey it was the 80's, reagans war on drugs flooded the country with cheap, high quality coke.
Anyone remember our fascination with Bonnie & Clyde? So, this thing with Pablo Escobar is no different, IMO. And, based on the price of the t-shirts, I suspect the people buying them are Chicano or tourists.
Gee, I wonder what kind of person would wear a "Pablo Escobar" shirt? The police probably had a tracking system on this clothing line that tracks their moves. Wasn't it wonderful to be able to simply smoke a joint (weed in my day) and not have to worry about 1) who you're funding, 2) getting macheted or shot to he!!, or 3) being intimidated by some punk for not buying "enough" weed for their group to profit from. Drug trade has become too dangerous and resorted to too many immature tactics for it to really move forward. I'm not sure even legalizing weed will help anyone, since it all seems tainted with the blood of good, innocent people. Maybe America should legalize a project where we grow our own and, like gas/oil, not depend on foreign countries for our product.Mexico has become more than a war zone: where it used to be a country I could visit to walk the trails of the ancient mesoAmericans, now is a gun battle-nation where no one is safe, regardless on who or what they are. I hope they find a quick solution before they end up killing all of those with good intentions to stop the "war".
For fritzNH
You have the smartest coment, yes, its a drug nation, yes officials are corrupt, but our culture, Mayas, Aztecas, things like that are worth seing, unfortunately it is unsafe. But this story, $65 to $95, thats BS, I live in Mexico and there is no such place where a shirt like that is worht that, if they are talking US currency. in Mexican currency Maybe, $95 US means about $1235 of Mexican currency, its a lot. not even a brand polo shirt is worth that in MExico, this story is obviously increasing prices to make the story more interesting. And about this drug war, there is no turn back, the president started it, and someone is going to have to finish it, I hope its the Mexican Army
fritz
right on, brother. OVERGROW the government!!
Maybe he is laundering money through his line of clothing.
HaHa. Good one. I almost didn't get it.
Well our drug culture is based on political corruption, racism and lies so i don't see how we're able to tell them anything. The biggest drug market in the world is right here in the good ol' USA.
Secondly, here we have his son how could just as easily trade off his fathers name to sling birds but he choose to do something artistic and legit and he catches flack for it.
bill,
Polticial corruption - can't argue with this one! Lies - absolutely! Racism - ahhh could you please explain that one. You're not thinking that drugs are a "minority" "black" or "brown" issue alone, do you? You're not implying that drugs don't touch "white" America, are you?
Bill your a total moron. What color is the sky in your make believe world?
Ya, what a great wonderful role model for all those Mexican kids. Nobody can tell me that the drug cartels are not in charge of Mexico.
A president, ruling party and police are all bought and paid for by the drugs that employ the greater part of the people.
One of the last places on earth I would take my family. Any where in the Middle East being the first.
Pablo Escobar was Columbian.
Yeah and he lost also.
The narco sub-culture is creepy and bizarre. This country is locked in a dance of death, with the mexican drug cartels. The US has an insatiable appetite for illicit narcotics and Mexico is only too happy to supply the product. Narcotics should be legalized.
The best way to destroy something, or bring it under control is not to make it illegal, but to have the gov't regulate it. They pretty much destroy everything else they regulate ( EPA, Dept of education, GSA etc etc).
LOL!! I think you just solved the problem.
I agree, you can rant and rave and jail thousands and marginalize whole segments of the populace, but you'll never stop the vice trade so you may as well regulate and tax and use some of all the money saved to put people in programs when their ready to deal with their health problem. The idea that we would be "allowing" drugs, prostitution, gambling to "spread" ignores the reality of their current hold on our society. It also ignores the fact that legal drugs [alcohol, tobacco] are used less and less through educating, taxing, and regulating, proving false the fear that huge numbers of people[ with children as the big scare factor] are going to dive in if the government gives it's "blessing".
It's really quite pathetic when it comes down to it- cashing in on daddy's culture of drugs, violence and death via selling t-shirts. lol!
u will be surprise... people will really buy this shirt. i think the price is over rated to be quite frank.. who are we to say this shirts will corrupt mexican kids minds.. i mean come on pablo escobar is a public figure alive or dead his known world wide. kids minds are going to get corrupted wether this shirts are out there or not. how about all the weed shirts that people wear does that mean all the kids are going to smoke pot.. is up too the kid to make his decision at the end of the day...
Pablo Escobar was not "Columbian". He did not live along the Columbia river. He was "Colombian" and lived in the country of Colombia. I very much doubt that any Mexican kid is paying 95 bucks for a T shirt. I think the writer simply pushed up the price to make the story more interesting. The U.S. and Mexico are locked into this drug business together. The U.S. is buying the drugs and Mexico is selling them. Blaming the Mexicans for selling the drugs is baloney. 20 million Americans buy drugs and the business is market driven. However, the Mexican government is totally corrupt. Every cop is on the take and the only honest police force are the Mexican Marines.
The kid is a moron. Managers at his own stores pay "Protection fees" to the local drug gangs so that they'll leave certain locations alone. Which has already caused some problems when another drug gang comes along and wants them to pay THEM "protection fees". The $65-$95 dollar T-shirts are basically high priced to pay protection money. Also, it doesn't help that certain locations are also were forced to higher local drug dealers into their store locations, and to sell drugs on the side lines along with the T-shirts.
The kid, is a complete business moron.
I saw Pablo Escabar wearing a 'Tony Montana' Tee Shirt once. It said - "Been there - Done that - and have the Tee Shirt to prove it!"
I did'nt really like cocaine back in the 80's....just the smell of it
BLAME THIS ON BUSH ! ! ! !
George W. Bush is clearly to blame for this ! ! !
How do I know..?.... Well, I dont yet....
but i AM going to watch MSNBC tomorrow. They seem to be able to blame Bush for every issue on the planet.
ps: I think that 'guy' Rachael Maddow is dreamy