Luis Carlos Galán suggested that Galán's assassination was executed with help of corrupt Colombian policemen and some of his own bodyguards, who had been bought off by the drug cartels, including Pablo Escobar and other drug lords. Most of the arrested presumed hitmen were killed in jail or shortly after their release, allegedly to silence them. On 13 May 2005, a former Justice minister (1974) and congressman of the Colombian Liberal Party, Alberto Santofimio, known for his open connections to Pablo Escobar during the 1980s (Escobar joined Santofimio's political movement), was arrested and accused of being the intellectual author of Galán's murder. According
Pablo Escobar of Córdoba and Urabá. "Los Pepes" carried out a bloody campaign, fueled by vengeance, in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates, his lawyer and relatives were slain, and a large amount of the Medellín cartel's property was destroyed. Members of the Search Bloc, and Colombian and United States intelligence agencies, in their efforts to find Escobar, either colluded with "Los Pepes" or moonlighted as both Search Bloc and "Los Pepes" simultaneously. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly through the sharing of intelligence to allow "Los Pepes" to bring down Escobar and his few remaining allies, but there are reports