Pablo Escobar’s Miami Mansion Demolished After Treasure Hunters Find ‘Something’
The Miami mansion owned by infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar was demolished on Tuesday. One more reminder of Miami’s violent drug smuggling history has finally been buried.
“I’m very excited to see the house of the devil disappearing right before our eyes,” said the property’s owner, Christian de Berdouare, who owns the Chicken Kitchen fast-food chain.
All last week, professional treasure hunters using metal detectors, magnetometers, electric saws, and other tools ransacked Escobar’s pink Miami mansion in search of any secrets the kingpin may have left behind. De Berdouare says the hunters did find “something,” but wouldn’t elaborate.
The Miami businessman did, however, say the discovery will be shown in an upcoming documentary about the drug lord.
“It’s either money, or it’s gold, or it’s jewels, or it’s arms, or it’s drugs, or it’s a dead body,” de Berdouare said.
As reported by the New York Daily News, Miami police are currently looking for the thief who stole a safe containing unknown contents from the mansion. The safe was underneath the marble floor and was taken before it could be properly excavated.
Even though a deed shows he only paid $10, Miami-Dade County public records indicate the King of Cocaine purchased the waterfront mansion in 1980 for $762,500. Pablo Escobar’s name is listed in a document transferring ownership of the property.
After seizing the mansion in 1987, the U.S. government left it vacant until Attorney Roger Schindler took it over in 1990. In the last several years, a fire partially destroyed the home while vandals covered some walls with graffiti and broke windows. Several holes were also punched into the walls as if someone was looking for something.
The mansion, built in 1948, had four bedrooms, six bathrooms, a pool, and garage. The property includes 150 feet of frontage on Biscayne Bay overlooking downtown Miami. Several celebrities, including Bee Gees’ singer Barry Gibb, own homes in the exclusive neighborhood.
In 2014, de Berdouare bought the mansion for $9.65 million. After the work clearing the property is complete, he will be building a brand-new modern home on the 7,336-square-foot plot.
“The reason I bought it is the property is magnificent,” he told the Miami Herald. “The fact that Pablo Escobar bought it, for me, if anything, is a negative. But it’s such a magnificent property that it doesn’t matter. Once we demolish this property… all the bad energies of the house will go bye-bye.”
Interestingly, de Berdouare said he had no idea the multi-million dollar Miami mansion was once owned by Escobar when the property was purchased. After finding out, his wife insisted the home be blessed by a Roman Catholic Monsignor.
Federal authorities even warned de Berdouare that anyone who possibly knew the kingpin could return to the mansion and steal anything that might remain from Pablo’s glory days.
A neighbor of de Berdouare once told him that cigarette boats coming and going in the water and loud parties at the mansion were quite common in the 1980s. He even remembered a mustachioed man with armed men appearing at the home from time to time.
De Berdouare may sell the new Miami home after the construction is finished. ONE Sotheby’s International Realty estimates the property will be worth $21 million upon completion.
In 1993, Pablo Escobar was killed during a shootout with police in Colombia. He was the leader of the notorious Medellin Cartel, which supplied roughly 80 percent of the cocaine brought into the United States. Miami was a known central hub for the drug smuggling operation.
Pablo Escobar is alive in numerous books, documentaries, and movies. Narcos, a Netflix original series based on his life, premiered in August of last year.
It isn’t clear if Pablo Escobar ever actually lived in the Miami mansion. U.S. authorities believe it was more likely used as a hideout for his gang and a spot to store tons of cocaine. In the 1970s and 1980s, the kingpin was considered one of the richest and most dangerous criminals at that time.
[Photo by Lynne Sladky/AP]
