Only a handful of men throughout history require no introduction. One of them is Pablo Escobar.
Escobar was responsible for around 80 per cent of the world’s cocaine and smuggled 15 tonnes of coke into the U.S. every single day – earning him the nickname, The King of Cocaine.
As the seventh richest man in the world at his peak, ol’ Pablo was used to raking in around $420 million dollars every week – making him one of the richest drug lords in history, reports the Daily Mail.
Hell, at one point while Pablo was on the run – he burnt through $2.1 million dollars in crisp bank notes just to get a fire going that could keep his family warm.
As an outsider looking in, that dangerous life always seems somewhat appealing and romantic – but what was it actually like to grow up with Pablo as your dad? Still pretty fucking appealing according to Pablo’s eldest son Juan.
Juan Pablo Escobar was born in 1977 and nowadays he spends his time working as an architect in Argentina under the name Sebastian Marroquin.
Juan had to change his name to Sebastian in the immediate aftermath of his father’s arrest and killing in order to protect his identity, but in the years that followed Juan decided he was not afraid of keeping his father’s name.
Speaking about his childhood, which was spent in countless lavish mansions, some with elephants and zebras floating around in the garden, Juan claimed it was like living in ‘Disneyland’.
Speaking to 60 Minutes, Juan said:
It was like living in Disneyland. Giraffe’s, elephants, motorcycles, a lot of things to do and a lot of money to spend.
I was willing to give my life for him.
There’s no chance I could hate my father… because I did not know exactly what he does.
I am not proud of his violence but I am proud of his love for me, to me and to my mother and sister. He did some things that make you love him and some things that make you hate him. That’s my father.
However Juan believes his father made one fatal mistake throughout his life of crime: turning to politics.
He added:
It was the worst decision [of] his life because once he went into politics everyone paid attention to him. If he didn’t do that I think he would be alive.
But Pablo’s life of crime came tumbling down to a fatal end when he was killed during a chase from the Colombian National Police in 1993.
Most believe that Pablo was killed by the police themselves however many of his close friends and family dispute the claim, choosing to believe that Pablo killed himself as he would prefer death than imprisonment.
