World Prisons
All prisons

Colombia

La Catedral

Closed 1992Low
Verified 29 May 2026
Fresh · 0d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit La Catedral

Step-by-step guidance using the Colombia system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

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Photograph of La Catedral

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • Guard house at La Catedral, Medellin.jpg

    Photo by Stefanomione via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Helipad at La Catedral, the former Pablo Escobar prison overlooking the City of Medellin.jpg

    Photo by Stefanomione via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • LaCatedralAntioquia.jpg

    Photo by Roma Diachkin via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

  • Pablonun kalesi14.23.jpg

    Photo by LucastTurco via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Background

La Catedral was a personal prison overlooking the city of Medellín, in Colombia. The prison was built to specifications ordered by Medellín Cartel leader Pablo Escobar, under a 1991 agreement with the Colombian government in which Escobar would surrender to authorities and serve a maximum term of five full years and the Colombian government would not extradite him to the United States. The prison has since been converted into a monastery by Catholic monks of the Benedictine Order.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

1991

Closed 1992

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1991

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources