Paa Joe Donkor, a former BBC journalist and Ex-drug baron, has claimed he worked with the late Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, commonly known as Pablo Escobar.
Pablo Escobar was a well-known Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and politician who was the founder and leader of the Medellín Cartel and was dubbed the “King of Cocaine”.
According to Paa Joe Donkor, he served as Pablo Escobar’s point man in West Africa and never snitched despite his own arrest and long imprisonment.
Paa Joe Donkor depicts the late Pablo Escobar positively as a man who supported the poor and paid hospital bills.
Speaking in an interview with Happy FM, Paa Joe Donkor stated, “I have worked with Pablo Escobar, but I have never snitched on him; even when I was arrested, Pablo was a very good man. He was a principled man and looked after the poor by building houses for them and taking care of their hospital bills.
But if you cross him, he will kill you. If he asked you to send $100,000 to a big man and you feel you are smart and steal part of the money, that could cause the death of about a thousand people. Because when the money is checked, there will be a drug war between the cartels”.
He added, “When that happens, there is mistrust; Pablo will give an option: gold or lead. The lead is bullets, and the gold is cocaine. He even got factories that were producing shirts, singlets, and bicycles.
You can do well when you are working in the factory, which is genuine, but if you want to do drug business in the valley, you have to be courageous and strong-hearted. He was a catholic. He was killed in 1992, but up till now, if someone is building and the foundation is dug, you will find $400 million; he never took his money to the bank”.
However, some Ghanaians replying to his comments largely dismiss the story as fabricated or inspired by shows like Narcos.
A netizen wrote, “He’s telling lies; he met Pablo Escobar when. Stop entertaining nonsense, cos he speaks good English, so he can’t lie, stupid, you there and let anyone lie on Air cos they’ve used drugs before and so what”.
One X user added, “The thing all he talk Dey the narcos movie, a figa he go talk something we nor know”.
A netizen added, “Pablo was a very good man ke??? These Ghanaians sef”.
“This man watches too many movies”, an X user added.
Meanwhile, in an old interview, Paa Joe Donkor disclosed that drugs only make rich folks poor and miserable, admonishing the youth to desist from it.
He detailed that when one becomes addicted, he would not mind selling his expensive vehicles for peanuts just to buy drugs to satisfy his short-term happiness.
Speaking in an interview with SVTV, he recounted, “Believe me, don’t ever go there; don’t let anybody deceive you into cocaine; when you have 100 million dollars within the next four hours, you are going to get broke, because it will get finished. Once you start taking it, there’s something they call Cortactin; within one month you become addicted, without it you can’t survive, your social life, physical life ceases, you can’t even travel, for a long time I never travelled or attended funerals, I will have Cortactin which will give me stomach cramps when I run out of stock”.
“I’m begging the youth, don’t ever make the mistake that I did. I have taken women to Switzerland, I have slept at hotels where I paid 500,000 dollars a day, I have taken women to Venice, it’s a paradise on earth, because I wanted to impress them but at the end of the day, they vanished. I have worn the best suits made by Italian tailors, but now I’m being humiliated because of drugs,’ he advised.
Watch the video below:
Legendary Ghanaian 🇬🇭 thug Paa Joe Donkor tells the story of how he worked with Pablo Escobar and never snitched on him, even after he was arrested.
— lonlee (@THEOCTOPUS_1) July 3, 2026
“I worked with Pablo Escobar. He was a good man. He looked after the poor and even paid their hospital bills.” pic.twitter.com/kavwjEdXHU
