Tirso ‘TJ’ Dominguez says Escobar paid him $20m monthly to fly planeloads of coke
A man who eventually became Pablo Escobar’s go-to cocaine pilot has revealed that he first turned down an employment offer from the notorious Colombian drug lord because he was content with the $4m a month he was earning while flying for a competitor.
But, in a new podcast containing what is believed to be his first interview since authorities arrested him at his Florida mansion in 1988, Tirso “TJ” Dominguez recounted how he changed his mind about working for Escobar when the so-called Patron – or boss – offered him a salary that was five times higher: $20m monthly.
“I had 30 Lamborghinis, and I dressed well,” Dominguez says of his ensuing lifestyle during the eight-part documentary podcast titled Cocaine Air, a copy of which was provided to the Guardian. “They brought me the car that matched the shirt that I decided to wear that day.”
The interview that Dominguez granted Cocaine Air host Johnathan Walton after spending more than a dozen years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering provides a stark, first-hand account of what would motivate someone to work for one of the world’s most infamous criminals. Escobar had a hand in murders, kidnappings and bombings before Colombia’s special forces shot him to death in 1993.
