The notorious drug lord “knew where I was from, my children, that I ‘committed suicide,'” Betzner says in The Invisible Pilot. He hired someone to look into me as insurance. He still calls Escobar “a legend” and rightly so.
However, he did reportedly testify in 1990 for the prosecution in a federal conspiracy trial against a man accused of running a warehouse as part of a trafficking ring. Explaining his own background while on the stand, Betzner said, “I’m a pilot, so I did what I did best. “I flew drugs.”
Betzner stated that sometimes he brought shoelaces, cheese, and other items for indigenous Colombians to help them on their flights. This was “just good public relations”.
Escobar was killed in 1993.
Upon Betzner’s release from prison, he returned to Arkansas, where he has been living relatively uneventfully with his third wife. His grown children also saw him again.
“His family has clearly had its struggles,” Ari Mark told the NY Post, “Gary admitted it and will continue to do so, and that I agree with.”
That’s just one version of his story. The Invisible Pilot premieres April 4 at 9 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max.