The Claim
10’s of millions of US dollars are buried in Columbia, and all the people who know where are dead.
Pablo Escobar is a name that few people have never heard, he is probably the most famous criminal in history and has gone down as the wealthiest criminal that ever lived.
During his reign in the 80’s he was making over 20 Billion dollars a year in personal income, and at his peak would make around $60 million a day. The King of Cocaine as he was known, provided as much as 80% of all cocaine used in the United States, and employed 1000’s of workers and soldiers.
After starting his life of crime in the 70’s as a smuggler and kidnapper, he moved onto cocaine and established the first smuggling routes into the US, which led to him starting his own business called the Medellín Cartel.
Being in the business he was, it goes without saying that trouble was never far away, and Pablo found himself constantly at odds with rival cartels and the law. After others started to see just how profitable cocaine was, and with the demand for the product in the US rapidly increasing, other cartels began to muscle in on Pablo’s territory and played a part in his downfall.
Ultimately the reason Pablo lost in the end was because of his temper, which led him to kill one to many police officers and several judges. His war with the police had him send people to bomb street corners and civilian areas, leading to public opinion of him dropping and informants coming forward.
His temper also led to the creation of Los Pepes, a paramilitary group set up with the sole purpose of wiping out Pablo and his cartel. This new opposition was funded by Pablo’s enemies and saw over 300 of his people, including his lawyer and members of his family being killed.
With the newly set up police “Search Bloc”, a task force with the only goal of stopping the Medellín Cartel, combined with Los Pepes and all the other rival cartels, Pablo could see his days were finally numbered. He was eventually killed on the 2nd December 1993, after getting shot in the back by an unnamed police officer while running across a rooftop.
After he died his territory and assets were ripped to pieces by his rivals, and all his accounts and properties were either destroyed or seized. The law found all his accounts and records and found out how he laundered money and which banks he stored cash in. However, the amount they recovered wasn’t even close to the total he made, leading to the story of the treasure of Pablo Escobar.
His wealth truly was ridiculous, with stories of how he’d spend hundreds of Dollars a week just on elastic bands to hold the cash together. He had so much laying around that one night when he was in hiding, he burnt around 3 million dollars in US currency to keep his family warm.
He was also well known to bury his money, something common with cartels as they often need quick access to large amounts of cash for various shady reasons. Some of these stashes have been found in the past by farmers, who quickly confess of their find and return the money to its owner.
There’s still numerous stashes of his cash that haven’t been found, as the only people he trusted with their locations died before they could reveal them, and due to the loss of his territory he wasn’t able to recover the funds himself.
As for finding it there’s simply no chance, and it wouldn’t be worth the risk. Between the current paramilitary, the Farc rebel group, the countless gangs and other cartels who have only become more violent since the days of Pablo, the chances of digging up random ground in the territory of some of most dangerous people on earth and finding a box with 20 year old US currency in is as close to impossible as you can get.
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