Intimate photos taken by Pablo Escobar’s private photographer

Édgar Jiménez Mendoza, known as ‘El Chino’, friend and personal photographer of the late drug lord, keeps a behind-the-scenes look at little-known moments of Pablo Escobar in his archives.

‘The Mob Photographer’, as he is known, photographed all kinds of meetings and celebrations, and was one of the coordinators of Escobar’s campaign for Congress.

Mendoza survived the worst of the war in order to tell his story. For more than three decades, he kept in his home a valuable intimate archive of his family’s daily life and the late drug dealer’s social and political life.

His unconditional loyalty and discretion led him to record the closest circle of friends and family of the head of the Medellín cartel.

Early in his work as a photographer, in the 1970s, he was an Anapo militant and recorded the political campaigns of General Rojas Pinilla, his daughter María Eugenia and his followers in Antioquia.

Later, under the guidance of Israel Santamaría, a former Anapo deputy and one of the founders of M-19, he joined a clandestine guerrilla cell, working on tasks related to dissemination, printing and photography.

He also participated as a pioneer of local pornography, as the first photographer of Cuerpos magazine, published in the 1980s by the alias El Poeta, who was Escobar’s public relations officer.

Here is the video of the interview