'Druglord dad burned $1.5m in cash to keep girl warm'

November 5, 2009

LONDON: Money, money, money must be funny in a druglord's world — a Columbian cocaine baron is said to have burned over $1.5 million in hard cash in one night just to keep his daughter warm at a mountain hideout.

Slain druglord Pablo Escobar lit a bonfire using wads of US dollars at the hideout, while he was on the run from the security forces, to cook besides keeping his daughter warm, British tabloid Daily Mirror quoted Escobar's son as telling 'Colombian' magazine.

In fact, Sebastian Marroquin, who changed his name from Juan Pablo Escobar, told the leading magazine that his father burned the money as he thought his girl was suffering from hypothermia.

Escobar, the head of the Medellin cartel, who had an estimated £18 billion fortune in 1989, was listed by the US 'Forbes' magazine as the seventh-richest man in the world.

In fact, during the height of his power in the 1980s, Escobar, controlled a vast empire of drugs and murder that covered the globe, and ruled over a personal empire of mansions, airplanes, a private zoo and even his own army of soldiers and hardened criminals.

Escobar made billions of dollars, ordered the murder of hundreds if not thousands of people. But, at the same time, he was said to have spent millions of dollars on schools, stadiums, churches and even housing for the poor.

However, in 1993, Colombian security forces, using US technology, located Escobar hiding in a home in a middle- class section of Medellin. He was eventually gunned down as he attempted to escape.

According to his brother Roberto Escobar's book, 'The Accountant's Story', before entering the cocaine trade, Escobar ran a business selling and reusing old tombstones from long forgotten graves.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Druglord-dad-burned-15m-in-cash-to-keep-girl-warm-/articleshow/5198058.cms