Pablo Escobar Facts, Net Worth, House, Siblings, Mother, Cousin, Wiki

Quick Facts

Pablo Escobar addressed in full as Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria also known as El Doctor, El Patrón, Don Pablo, El Señor and The Tzar Of The Drugs was a Columbian drug lord and narco-terrorist who reigned supreme in the 90’s. His cartel- The Medellin Cartel was an organized group of drug suppliers and smugglers based in the city of Medellin, Colombia. The cartel was single-handedly responsible for 80% of the cocaine smuggled illegally into the USA at the time. At the peak of his career, he earned over $60 million dollars in drug profit yearly. This earned him a spot on the list of Forbes 10 richest people in the world then.

Pablo was a notable philanthropist who built and expanded many social projects to help the poor, however terror campaigns to fight government police and keep his lucrative business going saw to the death of many people: policemen, judges, society leaders, politicians and just about anyone who stood in his way. This turned public opinion against him and he was soon shot dead by Colombian Police on 2 December 1993 in an exchange of gunfire during an attempt to capture him. This effectively ended the 16 months hunt for him and marked the end of the debacle of the Medellin Cartel and Colombia’s prominent role in the cocaine trade.

Pablo Escobar Wiki, Mother

Pablo Escobar was born on 1st December 1949 to the family of Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar a peasant farmer (father) and Hermilda Gaviria an elementary school teacher (mother) in the Colombian city of Rionegro, Antioquia; his family later moved to the suburb of Envigado. He studied briefly at Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Medellin but left without a degree.

From an early age, Escobar packed a unique drive and ambition to raise himself up from his humble beginnings through any means possible. Unfortunately, he chose the quick but deadly path to riches and started his criminal lifestyle as a teenager selling contraband cigarettes, stealing and selling gravestones, fake lottery tickets and later on, cars.

He was good with this dark way of living and this saw him earn recognition from reigning drug kingpins at that time whom he latter jettisoned out of business. In the 1970s, he began to work for various contraband smugglers, often kidnapping and holding people for ransom, he did this perfectly well and got himself a new role in the drug world in distributing powder cocaine, as well as carving out the very first smuggling routes into the United States in 1975.

Pablo was very successful in his deadly drug smuggling business and with the exponential increase in the demand for cocaine in the USA, by the 1980’s it was estimated that a whopping 70 to 80 tons of illegal cocaine were shipped to the US from Colombia on a monthly basis. This earned him the popular title of “The King of Cocaine”.

As a young man, Pablo dreamt of being the President of Colombia one day, this he disclosed to his friends and family and in furtherance of this, being a man of the people, he stood for and was elected as an alternate member of Colombia’s Congress in 1982. However, by 1984 the illegal source of his wealth could not be kept secret for much longer and this forced him to abdicate his seat in Congress. The justice minister who exposed him was later slain and you can infer rightly what caused his death.

Pablo Escobar’s Siblings, Cousin

Pablo had 6 siblings from his parents namely: Roberto Escobar, Luz María Escobar, Argemiro Escobar, Alba Marina Escobar, Luis Fernando Escobar, Gloria Inés Escobar.
However, of all his siblings, only Roberto Escobar and Alba Marina Escobar were close to him and had access to his money during his life and after he died. The only cousin of his who was close to his business operations was Nicholas Escobar. While Pablo was more forthright with violence, his cousin Nicholas was calmer and was involved more with the running of the cocaine business.

Pablo needed someone he would trust to manage his huge cash flow which runs into millions on a daily basis, so he made his brother Roberto Escobar his accountant. No one else knows more about the Medellin cartel’s finances than Pablo and his brother.

It was rumoured that Pablo lost his trust for his brother in his fading days as it seemed he later became a DEA informant. Netflix’s “” portrayed him in this light in the movie much to his chagrin. He announced that he will sue Netflix for $1 billion for the misrepresentation of his family in the show. Roberto was Pablo’s accountant for his drug gang in real life, but in the show, the accountant is depicted as a non-family member who turns out to be a C.I.A. agent. Roberto is demanding a right to review the second season’s story and to be properly compensated.

In an interview he granted earlier this year, he was quoted as saying

“I don’t want Netflix or any other film production company to film any movies in Medellin or Colombia that relate to me or my brother Pablo without authorization from Escobar Inc.,” Gaviria said. “It is very dangerous. Especially without our blessing. This is my country.”

However, at this moment, no update has been publicized on his intent to sue Netflix.

Pablo Escobar’s Net Worth and House

In his days as a drug lord, Pablo had the best things money could afford, his home was not an exception. He built a palatial estate in his country home in Colombia which he called Hacienda Napoles. He maintained a colonial house, sculpture garden and private zoo at the home which had several imported animals from various continents in addition to reconstructed dinosaurs.

Pablo owned in his name a 4 bedroom mansion on a 6500 square foot piece of land, pink waterfront situated at 5860 North Bay Road in Miami Beach, Florida USA. This was later seized by the government in the 1980’s.

When he was to serve time in a Colombian prison, he specifically requested to be allowed to build his own specialized prison. After about 6 months of negotiations, he prevailed over the government and had his prison “La Catedral,” or The Cathedral built according to his specifications.

The luxurious prison house was unofficially known as  “Club Medellin” or “Hotel Escobar,” and “resort”. It had a bathroom with a jacuzzi and a bedroom that had a circular, rotating bed. The compound included a soccer field, a discotheque, a dollhouse for his daughter and its own bar. There was a waterfall in addition to cellular phones, radio transmitters and a fax machine to allow him to continue with business, which at its peak brought his cartel $60 million dollars a day and oversaw control of up to 80 percent of the cocaine shipped to the United States.

Escobar made the list of 10 richest persons in the world as at that time according to Forbes. He was undoubtedly one of the richest criminals to have ever walked the face of the earth. He has an estimated net worth of US $30 billion by the early 1990’s (equivalent to about $55 billion as of 2016).

Quick Facts about Pablo Escobar 

• Pablo Escobar married his wife  when she was just 15 years old.
• Pablo was so wealthy in his illegal cocaine smuggling business that an estimated $25, 000 was spent monthly on rubber bands to tie his cash.
• He wrote off millions as spoilt money due to rat nibbling them or being spoilt by water. Most of his ill-gotten money was kept in storage houses and underground
• Millions of his money were buried underground in rubber drums. In 2016, a Colombian farmer was reported to have discovered millions of cash which were buried in an oil drum where he was farming.
• Despite killing so many people who stood in his way (more than 4,000 people which include about 1, 000 policemen), at his death, more than 25,000 people held a funeral procession for him. The majority of these people were those he helped through the social projects he executed in his lifetime.
• After the fall of Pablo Escobar’s house, the Hippopotamus in his private zoo wandered off and this contributed to more than 60 Hippo’s that swim in Colombian waters today.
• In his memory, his Colombian home was turned into a theme park, Ati Shares. It contains huge dinosaur statues, his collection of cars and a few of the animals he once kept in his private zoo.
• As officials repossessed his home after his death, one of the things they found was a self-help book titled “The Power of Positive Thinking.”
• Most of Pablo’s family members chose to stay out of the spotlight since his death except for his son Juan Pablo Escobar who now goes by the name Sebastián Marroquín.

Also Read: Top 10 Richest People in the world with full biography and details.