Rico Delgado (also known as The Boss) is a target that appears in the Three-Headed Serpent mission in HITMAN™ 2.
Background[]
Living with his mother's relatives in Santiago and spending summers with his uncle Fernando, who ran the infamous Delgado Cartel out of his old vineyard, Rico eventually decided he needed to go back home to Colombia to rebuild his father's empire. What met him was a ruin but the people in the nearby village all remembered the good Don Delgado and what he had done for the villagers. The locals helped Rico rebuild parts of the Delgado mansion grounds, and he also discovered that the locals had kept on growing the local coca fields. With things in progress, Rico started on a plan to rebuild the Delgado empire. Determined to bring the Delgado name back to its glory days, Rico saw the rebuilding of his family empire as his primary objective in life.
With the occasional assistance of his younger brother Hector, and the full-time support of his uncle Fernando's adopted daughter Andrea Martinez, Rico Delgado quickly liaised with the Delgado family's connections and old smugglers, rebuilding the network from the ground up. To begin with, the trio focused on various types of contraband to keep under the radar and to build up a solid logistics network, but he soon got back into drugs as well. In 2009, Rico Delgado got in touch with his uncle's old chemist and brought him to Colombia and together they started a new production line, hidden away in the nearby jungles.Personality[]
Rico Delgado is an influential and upright man who stubbornly took revenge on his uncle's assassins and kept a small museum of his exploits. He had no remorse for his actions, was quick to use violence, and was ruthless toward his enemies. He uses his wealth and power to touch his ego, such as erecting a statue of himself in the village where he lives, while pretending to help support the impoverished community that lives around his lavish mansion.
To his employees, however, he is a reasonable boss. He loves his wife, Catalina Delgado, and brother, Hector Delgado, despite being annoyed by their irresponsible behavior. He's also very fond of his pet hippo, named El Mijo, and has not shown any changes in the latter's diet by feeding humans rather than plants that herbivores like hippos need. He loved his uncle and cousin dearly, worked hard to avenge their deaths, and remains committed to it.
Rico is shown in the game that he is a very fond of his wife, Catalina, and has a tattoo of her on his neck. If 47 chooses to stop doing the tattoo on Rico as Paul Powers, he will look in the mirror and compliment it. If he is pacified or killed, he will drop a sports car key, which can be used to exit the mission.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Rico's love for his hippo is likely a reference to the real drug-lord Pablo Escobar. Pablo was known for owning a variety of exotic animals, including elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and monkeys. Out of all these animals, he cherished his pet hippos the most.
- Rico's uncle, Fernando Xalvador Delgado, was one of Agent 47's targets in the Hitman: Blood Money mission A Vintage Year.
- Rico Delgado bears a striking resemblance to Colombian-American actor John Leguizamo.
- During Three-Headed Serpent, Rico Delgado will have three phone conversations with Lucas Grey in which he:
- Seeks the names of those responsible for his uncle and cousin's deaths in exchange for his still-unfinished narco-sub. Grey asks that Rico finish the sub first as part of their deal, much to his protest. Grey argues that the sub will help him combat the rival Moreno cartel on his behalf.
- Finds out about Providence, which Grey says backs the Morenos. Grey says the Delgado's base needs to be strengthened before they can move against them.
- Reports that Ether Biotech Corporation's chief biochemist, Oscar Wong, was successfully interrogated, and released as requested.
- Rico is mentioned several times in HITMAN™:
- During The Showstopper, Andrea Martínez tells Dalia Margolis that Rico would like to marry her.
- During World of Tomorrow, one of Silvio Caruso's bodyguards near the castle mocks his need for a seaplane, comparing him to Rico.
- During Freedom Fighters, Sean Rose will call Rico regarding the logistics of moving a team into Mexico for the operation against Providence operative Gustavo Torres.
- Rico keeps a few mementos in a display room of his mansion:
- "The Head-Splitter", a baseball bat he often used while he worked as an enforcer for the Moreno Cartel. The last person he used it on was his former boss, after which he left the Moreno Cartel and went on to be their biggest rival.
- A sports car he bought after making his first million dollars; very soon after, the car was damaged in a shootout between Rico and some American DEA agents.
- This could be a reference to Breaking Bad, specifically the scene where Tuco Salamanca and Hank Schrader have a shootout that damages an expensive sports car. Tuco was a notorious cartel drug distributor and Hank was a DEA agent.
- The mugshot from his first and only arrest; by the time he was arrested, he and Andrea had already been steadily bribing the Chief of Police and Rico walked free within a few hours of his arrest.