Pablo Escobar was born on 1 December 1949, in Rionegro, Columbia, and is widely recognized as having been a major crime figure in Latin America as a cocaine trafficker and narco-terrorist, most famous for his illegal drug deals. However, concurrently with this illegal business, Pablo was known as a politician, but of course corrupt. Even so, he decided that it was not for him, and so started running his own business, dealing in payments for political favors, based on his involvement in the drug trade. He passed away in 1993.
So just how rich was Pablo Escobar? With a net worth of $30 billion, Escobar was considered to be one of the richest men in the world at the time of his death, earned almost entirely from his command of a large part of the Colombian drug trade.
Pablo Escobar Net Worth $30 Billion
Pablo Escober was one of nine children born into the family of Hemilda Gaviria – a school teacher – and Abel de Jesus Dari Escobar, a farmer. Pablo Escobar’s net worth started growing when he was still a teenager, from the profits of mostly petty crime. In particular, along with his brothers, Pablo used to steal gravestones, which were sold to Escobar`s uncle who was running a monument business. Pablo’s brothers still deny that the business was illegal, which may be true or not, but this was how Pablo Escobar started growing his net worth.
Following this beginning, Pablo Escobar started running his own illegal businesses, which included smuggling cigarettes and alcohol, stealing cars as well as selling fake lottery tickets. More seriously, in 1970 Pablo Escobar’s net worth was boosted after kidnapping a Medellin executive and gaining $100,000 from the ransom. After that, Escobar decided that the best way to increase his net worth was to start working in the sphere of drug dealing: his brother Roberto was his accountant, and has since claimed that over 15 tons of cocaine, worth $500 million, was moved from Columbia to the US almost every day.
This was a really successful business, and Pablo’s life was flourishing. Big sums of money were not deposited in the local banks, but he accumulated such a great net worth which was ridiculous for the time and place, and actually too much to go unnoticed or unchallenged. Along with his brothers, Pablo warehoused it alongside wheat, however, this was not the best decision he made, as the moisture and rats damaged some of the cash – it was estimated that over 10% of his stored cash was eaten by rats. Hence, if not for these animals, Pablo Escobar would have had an even larger net worth.
Pablo Escobar flourished for so long because he ‘bought’ – bribed – local police and legal and administrative authorities, which also included getting himself elected to the Chamber of Representatives in 1982. Still, his activities could not go unnoticed, as he had a fleet of aircraft moving illegal shipments internationally, plus using boats. At one point, shipments to the USA were supposedly up to 11 tons of cocaine in one aircraft, and his Medellin cartel actually controlled an estimated 80% of the world cocaine market. However, Escobar was also something of a philanthropist, and the local poor benefited considerably from his easily-affordable generosity, which made him relatively popular with the poor in his country.
Nevertheless, the US authorities eventually persuaded incorruptible Colombian security forces to cooperate with them, to bring an end to Pablo Escobar’s illegal empire, and he was eventually cornered by tracking radiotelephone transmissions, and killed in December 1993, at that time being one of the richest people in the world.
If Pablo Escobar had a distinct private life, it revolved around his wife Maria – who was 15 when he married her in 1976 – and their son and daughter. It was actually a mistake by his son which led to his being located, and resulted in his death.
