It is not often that you get to meet a man who has personally taken more than 250 lives and was involved in the torture and murder of thousands more. It is even rarer to see such a man in broad daylight, in a city centre enjoying public adulation. John Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, a.k.a. Popeye, is a local celebrity in Medellin, Colombia. In the 80s, the city was home to Pablo Escobar’s infamous, and extremely powerful, drug cartel. Popeye was the kingpin’s ‘hitman’.