The Drug Lord Who Accidentally Invaded Colombia With Hippos

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Pablo Escobar died in 1993. His hippos are still terrorizing Colombia today. In the 1980s, Escobar smuggled four hippos into Colombia for his private zoo at Hianda Napoli. When he was killed, the government took the estate but left the hippos. Nobody knew what to do with them. Those four hippos have now bred into over 130 animals. And then scientists say the number could hit 400 by 2035. They've escaped into the Magdalena River, the biggest river in Colombia. They're attacking fishermen, destroying crops, and hippos are the deadliest large animal on Earth.

[00:00:34]Scientists call them an ecological disaster. But local villagers, they've started to protect them. Some say the hippos are bringing tourists. Others say they fill a role lost. 10,000 years ago, when giant mammals roamed South America, Escobar accidentally rewed a continent.

[00:00:50]A drug lord's vanity project is now one of the strangest ecological stories on the planet.