★★★ It was a controversial life, but it deserved to be told. That of John Jairo Velásquez (1962-2020), better known as “JJ” or “Popeye”, lieutenant, right-hand man and head of the hitmen of his compatriot, the Colombian drug trafficker, terrorist and politician Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria. The confessed author of more than three hundred murders, the planning of another three thousand and the explosion of two hundred car bombs, he was among those responsible for turning Medellín into one of the most dangerous cities in the world during the 1990s.
Despite this background, he was never captured. It was he who turned himself in to justice in 1992, more than a year before Escobar was killed, he also confessed to having killed his wife and became the only survivor of the Cartel.
Jhon Jairo, after spending twenty-three years in prison, was released on parole in 2014 for good behavior. However, in 2018 he was arrested again for extorting families from Antioquia. The charges were extortion, “concert to commit a crime”, threats and incitement to hatred. When he was 57 years old, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, a disease that caused his death. In recent years, he has become popular on social media by opening a YouTube channel that has earned more than a million subscribers, sparking heated controversy.
Based on the book “Surviving Escobar”, by Velásquez himself, the detailed sixty-episode series begins its story from the decline of Escobar, at the moment when “JJ” (convincingly played by Juan Pablo Urrego) decides to turn himself in, until his last years in prison, where he shows the most important and relevant events that he went through during his confinement.
But also, and herein lies the value, it narrates the political and social history of Colombia at that time, during the narco-terrorism season and shows how, while the cartel collapses, “Popeye” fights to survive to save his existence. In doing so, he tries to gain respect and climb the prison hierarchy, for which he is forced to strategically unite with enemies from the past, well-known politicians and figures in public life.
As “Narcos”, “El Chapo”, “Narcos México” or “Pablo Escobar, el patrón del mal” demonstrated, the shipments with the theme of Latin American drug traffickers generate a lot of interest among the world audience due to the drama that it entails. This is no exception.
