Who was Beto Renteria? Colombian cartel boss who rose to power after Pablo Escobar’s death assassinated at home
A retired Colombian cartel boss who rose to power following the death of Pablo Escobar has reportedly been assassinated by a rival gang. 75-year-old Beto Renteria once led the feared Norte del Valle mob that was notorious for shipping drugs and contraband worth billions of dollars to the US, The Sun reported. Renteria had recently returned to Colombia after spending seven years in a US prison. He was gunned down in his Sajonia, Tulua residence on Wednesday. According to local outlets, the former mob boss was sitting in an armchair and sipping water when an assassin opened fire through a window. Using 9mm "dum dum" hollow-tip bullets to ensure Renteria wouldn't survive, the hitman secured a headshot before fleeing with an accomplice on a motorcycle.
Following his death, authorities deployed extra police forces in the region to prevent an outbreak of a gangland war. While investigators are yet to establish who ordered the hit, it's important to note that Renteria had made a number of enemies over the years.
Renteria became one of the most powerful figures in smuggling narcotics after the fall of the Medellin Cartel with Escobar's 1993 death. At the pinnacle of his power, the Norte de Valle boss declared an all-out war on rivals Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, bosses of the feared Cali Cartel. Renteria's crime syndicate distributed cocaine all over Colombia, Peru, and Mexico from where it was smuggled into the United States.
At one point, the US government announced a $5 million reward for his arrest and began scrutinizing his vast property and other assets. It emerged he owned a series of agricultural farms, hotels, clinics, and also the local football team Cortuluá. 34 of his properties were seized by Colombian authorities in 2006, as his empire began to crumble.
Renteria was reportedly captured in Venezuela back in 2010 with assistance from British intelligence services. At the time, he was hailed as "the last great boss of the Norte del Valle Cartel" as most other prominent leaders of the cartel had either died or were behind bars. Renteria was subsequently extradited to the US, where he served seven years for trafficking in a maximum-security facility. Following his sentence, he returned to Colombia - only to be arrested again in 2018 on further charges.
That said, his whereabouts were unknown to the public until he was killed this week. An investigation into his murder is underway.
Renteria's predecessor Escobar was killed in a shootout with law enforcement in 1993. The narcoterrorist had massed an estimated net worth of $30 billion by the time of his death — equivalent to $59 billion as of 2019 — while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the '80s and '90s.
We recently chronicled how Escobar had purchased a large estate in the 1970s that he used as a hideout later in life. Called the Hacienda Napoles, he converted it into a theme park which included a Spanish colonial house, a sculpture park, and a complete zoo that included many kinds of animals from different continents such as antelope, elephants, exotic birds, giraffes, hippopotamuses, ostriches, and ponies, most of which were illegally imported.