In another version of history, the world's most feared drug lord was taken out by a former pub landlord from Glasgow.
Peter McAleese, a trained SAS operative turned mercenary, was part of a crack team hired in 1989 to kill 'King of Cocaine' Pablo Escobar, the notorious boss of the Medellin Cartel.
Offered $1million for his head by a rival gang, the group were flown out to Colombia, where they practised the daredevil mission on football pitches and in the jungle with live ammunition.
However, when the moment to strike finally came, a deadly helicopter crash left the operation in tatters - and McAleese at the mercy of Escobar's furious wrath.
In the documentary 'Killing Escobar', which is airing tonight on BBC Two, the now 79-year-old lifts the lid on the fateful mission - and how he lived to tell the tale.
Gun for hire who 'learned to fight in Glasgow'
By the time he joined the Army aged 17, McAleese was no stranger to the violent side of life.
"I was trained to kill by the Army but the fighting instinct came from Glasgow," he tells the documentary.
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Becoming a member of the elite 22 SAS Regiment, he served in the jungles of Borneo, before rejoining civilian life - a decision he later came to regret.
At one point, the dad-of-three ran The Gunmakers Arms pub in Birmingham, but he struggled to find his feet with a 'normal' job and was sent to prison for assaulting a girlfriend.
After his release, McAleese decided to become a gun-for-hire, travelling to Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
During this time he met fixer Dave Tomkins, who was then approached by Jorge Salcedo, the head of security for the Cali Cartel, with an unbelievable request.
"You don't get asked to assassinate Pablo Escobar unless you have got the right experience," McAleese says.
"I had no morals about killing him. I have never looked upon it as murder. I looked upon it as a target."
Mission impossible?
The mission was quite simple: kill the most dangerous man in the world.
At the height of his powers, Escobar was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day - racking up a fortune of £45billion and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
The Cali Cartel, however, were convinced that the drugs kingpin could be snared while travelling to his Hacienda Napoles ranch.
Following a reconnaissance flight, McAleese and Tompkins agreed and signed up a team of 12 mercenaries - keeping details of the target a secret.
Speaking in an interview on the James English podcast, the hitman told how they trained on a football pitch before moving into the jungle to practise with live ammunition.
"We did a couple of live rehearsals, wearing all the kit that we’d wear on the target, carrying the weapons we would use on the target, fire and ammunition that we would use," he said.
"We just practised and practised and then we got it right."
Deadly crash leads to fight for survival
Desperately outnumbered by Escobar's vast security team, the hit squad hired two helicopters, which they believed could give them an edge as they flew over the compound.
“A lot of his bodyguards and security guys were just guys that ran about with a magazine in their belt and carrying an Uzi or some sub-machine gun," McAleese explained.
"We went in there carrying enough ammunition to kill the best part of 3,000 men."
When the day of the mission came, however, the helicopters proved their undoing.
Flying low over the Andes to avoid detection, the chopper carrying McAleese and Tompkins spiralled out of control and crashed to the ground.
The pilot was killed instantly and while the passengers survived, the Scotsman was too badly injured to move.
Lying on the mountainside helplessly for three days, he was forced to wait for rescuers while Escobar's men trawled the mountainside - having been tipped off about the assassination plot.
"The pain was f***ing excruciating. I started thinking what the f*** am I doing here, how did I get myself into this s***?” McAleese said.
He adds in the documentary: "If Pablo had caught me I would have had a long, drawn out, painful death."
'I have a lot of regrets - but not as a soldier'
Chased into a desperate retreat, McAleese was lucky to escape with his life - and had to concede defeat in his mission.
Nonetheless, Escobar's reign of terror was slowly coming to an end. In 1991, he agreed a deal with the Colombian government to go to a specially built prison, La Catedral, to avoid extradition, but lived a life of luxury inside the compound, which boasted a football pitch, bar, hot tub and waterfall.
After the government attempted to move him to another institution, he went on the run. In 1993, he was finally killed during a rooftop shoot-out in Medellin as he tried to flee from police.
Reflecting on his life, McAleese tells the documentary his biggest regrets are failing as a father and husband - not the mission to kill the richest criminal in history.
"I have an awful lot of regrets and none of them are in the soldiering side of my life," he says.
'Killing Escobar' is available on BBC IPlayer now and airs tonight on BBC Two at 9pm.
