Colombia: Victims of Colombian Conflict Given Land from Pablo Escobar’s ‘Cocaine Hippos’ Ranch

Oct 2, 2025 | James Reynolds

Victims of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict have controversially been given swathes of land from drug baron Pablo Escobar’s ranch, famed for its ‘cocaine hippos’.

President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday that part of the sprawling 4,000-hectare (10,000-acre) Hacienda Napoles estate in northwest Antioquia department had been “recovered” for “the victims”.

The government said that 120 hectares (297 acres) of land had been handed over to local women farmers. Farming families received a land loan from the local municipality in 2017, but were later evicted by police, according to the national government.

Petro, who leads Colombia’s first Left-wing government, had asked in May that Escobar’s estate be included in a land reform programme, handing over some properties owned by drug traffickers to rural Colombians.