When I first heard the expression ‘cocaine hippo,’ my initial thoughts were that it must either be a reference to some sort of industrial scale drug mule operation, or that someone was being rude about Mitch McConnell. In fact, the origins of the cocaine hippo aren’t far from the former, but are even more outlandish than you might expect.
In the 1980s, when he wasn’t becoming the world’s richest drug kingpin or going to war with the government, Pablo Escobar indulged his various passions: he bought a football team, grew Colombia’s most lustrous moustache (no mean feat in those days) and opened a private zoo on his estate outside Medellin, Hacienda Napoles. There, he imported rare and exotic species for the entertainment of his young children, including zebras, giraffes and elephants.
Denying feral hippos their right to procreate is not straightforward, though, nor something to which they are particularly accommodating.
You might think it strange for someone to spend their money on something so impractical, but Escobar had more money than he could spend.
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