The leaders of the powerful Medellin cocaine cartel have become folk heroes for their ability to escape the relentless pursuit of government security forces. Last week Pablo Escobar Gaviria, 39, a leader of the drug ring that controls 80% of the cocaine entering the U.S., pulled off one of the most impressive getaways. In an operation code named Against the Fortress, some 600 police and army troops raided a ranch 70 miles outside Medellin, but Escobar managed to elude them.

When the police fleet of ten helicopters suddenly appeared overhead at 6:30 a.m., one sentry ran to alert Escobar and others, while bodyguards opened fire with semiautomatic rifles. Escobar slipped away by running through a patch of wild cane, scuttling across a creek with planks laid over it and, finally, jumping into a speedboat and disappearing. A wide-scale ground and helicopter search failed to turn up Escobar, who is included on the U.S. Justice Department's list of the twelve most wanted Colombian drug traffickers.