World Prisons
All prisons

Colombia

La Catedral

Closed 1992Low
Verified
Aging · 5mo ago
Sources last reviewed on

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date.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.

Open toolkit
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

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Current population

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Occupancy

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Year opened

1991

Closed 1992

Figures from official sources · verified 29 May 2026 · methodology

Facility profile

Operator

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Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1991

Region

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Security level

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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.

Related facilities

All in Colombia →

Same country, matched on type + security level where possible.

Data completeness

16%

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

Sources

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA
World Prisons. (2026). La Catedral. Retrieved October 20, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/prisons/la-catedral
Chicago
"La Catedral." World Prisons. Accessed October 20, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/prisons/la-catedral.
BibTeX
@misc{worldprisons-la-catedral,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {La Catedral},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/prisons/la-catedral},
  urldate = {2026-10-20}
}