I'm watching the new Netflix orginal "Narcos" and it's quite interesting. I'm wondering mainly how widely known his dirty little secrets were. Drugs, murder, overall corruption.
The big thing with Pablo Escobar was that he knew that he needed the support of his home town. The with common person not calling the police or actively running interference on behalf of his criminal enterprise was an obvious good.
He invested in a fair bit of charity work, building parks, sponsoring children's soccer teams, and doing a lot of poverty relief stuff in Medellin. He also was a major owner of professional soccer teams and really stepped into the same role that many legitimate businessmen have in the United States today.
This wasn't all that uncommon. During Prohibition Al Capone famously funded soup kitchens and similar poverty relief programs in his areas of control. If you are seen trying to care for the community then the community won't actively hate you, even if you are an incredibly violent criminal... provided that the violence is aimed at people outside the community, of course.
You don't necessarily have to be a criminal to exploit this mechanism. In order to legalize prostitution in his corner of Nevada Joe Conforte, original owner of the Mustang Ranch (the first legal brothel in the United States), built low income housing in the county in question, gave out free turkeys on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and generally was best friend to every person in that trailer park... provided that they voted his friends in county government where they promptly legalized this and looked the other way for that.
Basically, pick a discrete area. Help the poor in that area, build programs that people want, and improve the lives of the otherwise uninvolved and they will protect you as an extension of their community. It's not all that hard. Frankly, I'm confused as to why American Politicians don't follow suit. They waste so much money on TV advertisements that no one remembers in six months, I can't help but think that politicians could learn a great deal from those drug dealers and pimps.
Come on people, it's Colombia, not Columbia
For additional reading, you may wish to consider Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden. (The author of Blackhawk Down.)
The Colombian political system in the 1970s had many flaws. for example, there were not election of mayors in any city, it was the president who decided every mayor for every city (more than 1000 cities). And there were only 2 parties (liberal and conservative). both parties had to deal with the politicians from the 1000 municipalities, and they did it all from Bogotá. The leaders in Bogotá had to rely with local leaders (those were called "caciques politicos"), those "caciques" had the power to appoint people in local bureaucratic jobs but practiced many forms of corruption. e.g. caciques asked for money to every employed. so if anyone wanted to be a politician, first needed the approbation of the local cacique.
So, when Pablo Escobar started his movement "Alternativa Liberal" he had the bless and support from some local corrupt politicians like Alberto Santofimio Botero. and in Bogotá the directors knew little about him. I would point that Pablo Escobar was not a main congressman, he was a substitute, making it harder for the system to identify the background of Pablo Escobar.
the good thing was the approbation in 1986 of local elections to choose mayor. and those caciques were slowly losing power.
Another point is the low legitimacy that the Colombian government had in th 1970s. the government was more concerned in not been overthrown or leave the country fall in a civil war than what "those "new riches"(narcos) could do.
Escobar just filled the gaps and exploited the weakness of the government to get in the legislative power.