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With the rave reviews about Narcos on Netflix, it seems as if there is a drastic increase\u00a0in the amount of people wanting to know more about the enigmatic drug dealer, Pablo Escobar. If you have been living under a rock, or were born after the 90s, Escobar, at one point was the biggest drug dealer in the world. He sold a lot of drugs, made mountains of money and was pretty ruthless.<\/p>\n
When you hear about\u00a0the life that Pablo Escoabr lived, it almost seems as if it was a movie. This is why you definitely need to check out the\u00a031\u00a0Outrageous Facts About Pablo Escobar<\/strong>, some of them sound downright insane.<\/p>\n1. Pablo Escobar\u00a0Grew Up Poor<\/h2>\n
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Pablo was born Dec 11th, 1949 to Abel de Jes\u00fas Dari Escobar, \u00a0who was a farmer, and Hermilda Gaviria, an elementary school teacher. His mother had 7 children and at times money was hard to come by. Pablo saw the struggle that his mother had and at the mere age of 5 years old, \u00a0Pablo told his mother “mom, wait until I grew up, I will\u00a0give you everything.\u201d<\/p>\n2. His Life of Crime Started in his Teens<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/a>As a teenager on the streets of Medell\u00edn, Colombia, Pablo started his criminal career by going to cemeteries and stealing gravestones. He would then sand them down and resell them to smugglers in Panama.<\/p>\n3. He Then Moved on to More Serious Crime<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>As he grew older, Escobar got involved in more serious criminal activities. These would include petty street scams, selling fake lottery tickets, selling contraband cigarettes and also stealing automobiles.<\/p>\n4. His First Big Payday Was a Kidnapping<\/h2>\n
Before he made the big step into the drug business, he kidnapped and ransomed a\u00a0Medell\u00edn executive for $100,000.<\/p>\n5. At the Start of His Cocaine Operation, He Flew Drugs Into the United States Himself<\/h2>\n
\n<\/a>With the drug operation just starting up, Escobar would fly planes himself between Colombia and Panama, along the drug smuggling routes into the United States. The first plane he used was decommissioned and he\u00a0hung it above the gate to his ranch at Hacienda Napoles.<\/p>\n6. Drugs Were Brought Into The U.S. in Plane Tires<\/h2>\n
With Pablo increasing the amount of cocaine he brought into the United States, he started moving the drugs in the tires of planes. A pilot could have a major payday of $500,000 per flight, depending on how much coke he could bring into the country.<\/p>\n\u00a07. The First Time he got\u00a0Arrested\u00a0he Made the Case Disappear<\/h2>\n
The first time Pablo got arrested he unsuccessfully tried to bribe the Medell\u00edn judges who were building a case\u00a0against him. After many months of legal wrangling, Pablo took matters into his own hands and had the two arresting officers killed and the case was dropped. This was the start of how Escobar dealt with the authorities. He would\u00a0either bribe\u00a0them or kill them.<\/p>\n8. He Imported the Majority\u00a0of Cocaine to the United States in the 80s<\/h2>\n
<\/a>At the height of his power, Escobar brought 80% of cocaine into the United States. Four out of five people who snorted cocaine in the 1980s, were snorting Escobar coke.<\/p>\n9. He Smuggled in 15 Tons of Cocaine Daily to the United States<\/h2>\n
<\/a>15 tons of cocaine were smuggled into the United States on a daily basis, this was the equivalent of 3-4 large adult elephants. Escobar would also buy Boeing 727s, strip out all the passenger seats and fly up to 10 tons per flight into the U.S.<\/p>\n10. He Made A Lot of Money<\/h2>\n
<\/a>With the amount of cocaine coming into the U.S., Pablo was making around\u00a0$60 million per day, $420 million a week, \u00a0$1.8 billion a month and roughly $22 billion in a year.<\/p>\n11. They Spent $4,000 a Month on Rubber bands for Cash<\/h2>\n
In the book The Accountant’s Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medell\u00edn Cartel, \u00a0<\/i>Pablo’s brother,\u00a0<\/i>Roberto,\u00a0indicated that\u00a0he and his brother’s operation spent $1000 per week purchasing rubber bands, which were used to to wrap the stacks of cash. Think about how cheap rubber bands are and the fact that they used $4,000 a month to purchase, means they had \u00a0A LOT of money.<\/p>\n12. $2.2 Billion Had to Be Written Off Yearly Due to Rats<\/h2>\n
Pablo generated so much money, he began storing most of it in warehouses. Ten percent had to be written off\u00a0yearly due to\u00a0“spoilage”. That spoilage would be rats who would come into the warehouse at night and nibble on the thousands of hundred dollar bills.<\/p>\n13. Escobar Was one of the Top Billionaires in the World<\/h2>\n
<\/a>In 1989, Forbes<\/i> magazine placed Pablo Escobar as one of the richest people in the world. He was ranked as\u00a0one of the top 227 billionaires in the world. They judged him to have a \u00a0personal net worth of close to US$30 billion.<\/p>\n14. There is Millions of Dollars Buried in the Colombian Countryside<\/h2>\n
Escobar was bringing in millions of dollars a day. The amount was so staggering, they essentially ran out of space to store it. One ingenious way they could hide the money, was by placing them inside drums and burying them around the Colombian countryside. \u00a0Even after his death, many of the drums of money\u00a0remain buried in or near other properties owned by Escobar in Colombia and other countries, including Mexico<\/a>.<\/p>\n15. Escobar\u00a0Lived by “Silver or Lead”<\/h2>\n