Pablo Escobar's #1 Hit Man With 257 Confirmed Murders, "Popeye" Velasquez — Who Rebranded As The Social Media Superstar "Regretful Popeye" With 1.2 Million YouTube Fans — Dies.

NY POST — Pablo Escobar’s top hitman, Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez — nicknamed “Popeye” — died Thursday after a battle with esophageal cancer, according to new reports.

Velásquez, 54, died in the early morning hours at the National Cancer Institute in Bogotá, Colombian outlet La FM reported, citing a statement from the country’s National Penitentiary and Prison Institute.

I was going to say "RIP" in the headline but on further reading, I thought that might be insulting to the friends and family of the 3,300 people he was involved in murdering. I mean it would have been an incredibly ignorant thing to do. So I'm not doing it. It is now on the record that I do NOT wish for Popeye to rest in peace. 

If you are super interested in cartels and spend hours reading Wikipedia pages about them, Jhon Jairo "Popeye" Velasquez should be a familiar face. He's right up there on the list of most notorious cartel hitmen, ever. "Pablo Escobar's Favourite Human." 257 confirmed murders and 3,000+ more that he either ordered or had a part in planning. 200 car bombs. He was the mastermind of the 1989 bombing of the Avianca jet that a presidential candidate was supposed to be on, killing 107 innocent people. He kidnapped and tortured a future president and vice president of Colombia. He murdered an attorney general. He plotted the murder of ANOTHER presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan — this is the one that got him locked up. The only murder he was ever convicted of.

(Side note: you have to have 50 pound balls made out of solid steel dipped in lead and coated in graphene to run for office, or be involved in politics in any way, in Colombia. I mean that's insane. INSANE. Imagine wanting to make a difference and help people THAT much? I'm grateful there are people out there like that because it's certainly not me.)

Outside of his work in politics, Popeye is probably most well-known for murdering his own girlfriend with 2 shots to the head when Pablo told him "plata o plomo, amor o muerte" — love or death, money or lead. That is dedication to a really, really shitty boss.

They were lying in bed one day when the phone rang; on the other end was a recording of Wendy speaking with DEA agents. 'Popeye' was then given a choice: "love or death, money or lead (plata o plomo)". Velásquez hung up the phone and shot Wendy fatally twice in the forehead. 

In an interview, according to Popeye, Escobar was clear in his instructions, "you or her, do not hesitate a single second … plata o plomo, amor o muerte. I’m waiting."  As his main sicario (hitman) and Escobar's right hand man, "Popeye" performed the murder himself even though she was the woman he loved. (Wiki)

Getty — Jhon Jairo Velasquez, A.K.A "Popeye", visits the tomb of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar at the Montesacro cemetery in Medellin

The quote that Popeye gave to the Telegraph describing his first kill really sums him up:

“I had to kill a bus conductor in the Medellin suburb of Envigado,” Popeye recalled. “When he was the driver, the mother of a friend of Pablo Escobar’s got off the bus and had a fall, and he didn’t help her. He left her there, and she died. So when this guy got some money, he asked Pablo Escobar to help him get revenge on this driver.”

“I made some inquiries, found the guy, and killed him. I felt nothing,” Popeye added. “That idea that a person cannot sleep for thinking about dead people doesn’t apply to me.”

However, Velasquez either had a change of heart in jail… or read a bunch of books on PR. Because when he finally got out of prison in 2014, he was completely rebranded. "Popeye" the ruthless hitman with 257 confessed killings and countless kidnappings and tortures was now "Popeye Arrepentido" — Remorseful or Regretful Popeye — a man dedicated to tackling government corruption and socioeconomic hardships. 

Remorseful Popeye was a fucking star. 1.21 million YouTube subscribers. Profiled in the New York Times: "The Colombian Hit Man Who Became A YouTube Star."

He starred in Narcos Season 3, wrote two best-sellers, turned one of them into a Netflix show ("Surviving Escobar"), and starred in X Sicario - Pablo Escobar's Hitman, where he played — you guessed it — "the most feared hitman working for Pablo Escobar."(Named Simon. ???) 

The redemption story of Regretful Popeye didn't last very long — 2 years to be exact, when he was shipped right back to prison for extortion due to his blackmailing of Pablo's associates who had control of his assets. 

And now, February 2020, at the age of 57 — Popeye is dead. From cancer, which if you believe in karma, might have something to do with the thousands of people he murdered before becoming a vlogger. 

Adios Popeye.

Sources: The Sun, NY Times, The NY Post, Telegraph