All language subtitles for Historys Greatest Mysteries S06E06 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[tense music]

- Tonight, one of the most
notorious narcotics traffickers

in history, Pablo Escobar.

- By the early 1980s, Pablo
Escobar is responsible

for 80% of the cocaine
that is bought and sold

in the United States of America.

- He was 100% ruthless.

He was capable of pulling
out a gun and opening fire

without a moment's remorse.

- But to others, they
saw him as their savior.

- He would tell people,
"You have a choice.

You can take my silver,
my money, or my lead."

- After years trying
to capture Escobar,

he is finally taken down.

But there are still
a lot of questions

about what actually happened.

- Now, we'll explore
the top theories

surrounding the mysteries
of Pablo Escobar's death,

and the fortune he left behind.

- Who was it that really
killed Pablo Escobar that day?

- Many say he was
simply executed.

- Was the Colombian
government working against him

with a rival cartel?

- At the cartel's height,

20% of all the US$100
bills in circulation

were somewhere in Colombia.

- This guy had billions
of dollars in cash.

And there is a good reason
to believe that some of it,

if not a lot of it, is
still buried out there,

ready to be found.

- Who killed Pablo Escobar?

And what happened
to his fortune?

[tense music]

Medellin, Colombia, 1974.

24-year-old Pablo Escobar is
already a hardened criminal.

- In 1974, Medellin,
Colombia is known as a hub

for smuggling contraband all
over North and South America.

And Pablo Escobar is 24 years
old, and he grew up very poor.

So he is always
thinking about new ways

of muscling his way into
businesses and making money.

- He has already established
himself as a career criminal.

He's engaged in auto theft
and fraud and kidnapping.

And he's coming of age at
a really important time

for Colombia because
cocaine has taken off

in the United States,

and Colombia is a major
supplier of that drug.

- In the 1970s in
the United States,

people find cocaine to
be an attractive drug,

because attractive
people are using it.

Models, politicians,
people on Wall Street.

And suddenly it became the
glamour drug of the era,

and it was insanely addictive,
and also highly profitable.

- Escobar sees that
some smuggling operators

are getting a lot of
money from cocaine.

The problem is, Escobar does
not know how to make cocaine,

and who to sell it to.

- [Laurence] What
Escobar does know

is how to muscle
in on an operation.

- The one thing Pablo Escobar
was very good at was violence.

And he learned at
a very early age

in his criminal activities,
with violence comes control.

He was willing to kill
the individual's families,

their friends, abducting, and
murdering to prove a point,

in that he is the one
that is in control.

- He was 100% ruthless.

He was capable of going
from jovial and friendly,

to pulling out a
gun and opening fire

without a moment's remorse.

- So he used extreme violence

to take over the emerging
cocaine producers'

small laboratories in the
jungle, into a cartel,

under his control, called
the Medellin Cartel.

- Now, Escobar is
top dog in charge.

He's the one who was
bribing the cops, judges,

and they're afraid of him.

- He knows how to kill.

His method was often
referred to as

"plato o plomo,"

silver or lead.

If you did what he
wanted you to do,

you would be handsomely
rewarded for it.

And if you didn't
do as he wanted,

well, someone would
plug you full of lead.

[shot firing]

- The Medellin Cartel

becomes an incredibly
sophisticated organization.

It has a network of cocaine
labs strewn all over Colombia.

They have airplanes,
helicopters.

They also have an
island in the Bahamas

that serves as a launch point
for shipments of cocaine

to the United States.

- [Laurence] By the early 1980s,

Pablo Escobar is smuggling
15 tons of cocaine

into the US every day,

and pulling in US$400
million a week.

- He is responsible
for 80% of the cocaine

that is bought and sold in
the United States of America,

so he is swimming in cash.

We're talking billions of
dollars in cash. Paper money.

It's so much money they don't
know what to do with it.

- They buy property.

Escobar builds this massive
estate, the Hacienda Napoles.

There's an airstrip,
there's a soccer field,

multiple mansions, a zoo.

He was spending $2,500
a month on rubber bands

to hold the stacks
of money together.

- Escobar actually gives
millions of dollars away

to the poor to help them with
healthcare, schools, housing,

and he really becomes known

somewhat of a local

homegrown Robin Hood.

- At first,

Colombian officials were not
going against Pablo Escobar.

Many of them were bought
off almost immediately,

and they liked the money.

And Colombia is flooded with
Escobar's cocaine money.

But unfortunately,
with that money,

came more violence as well,

because Escobar by
then had his own army

who would kill anybody
who stood in his way.

- According to official records,

Pablo Escobar killed over
1,000 police officers,

more than 200 judges,
politicians, journalists.

He blew up an airliner

in an attempt to kill a
presidential candidate.

- [Reporter] Pablo Escobar

is also accused of the

November 27th bombing

of a Colombian jetliner

just outside Bogota that
killed all 107 people on board.

- And at that point, Pablo
Escobar had initiated a war

with the Colombian government.

- In the United States,

the American government has
identified the drug trade

as a major threat to
US national security.

And so President Ronald
Reagan formally declares

the US will engage
in a war on drugs.

- I am today proposing a
massive legislative program

aimed at stepping up the
battle on these two fronts,

in our neighborhoods,
and our schools.

- The US government
is putting in

hundreds of millions of dollars

to support the Colombian effort

to break the Medellin Cartel.

- [Laurence] Under pressure,

the Colombian government
finally turns up the heat.

- By 1990, there is essentially
a civil war going on

in Colombia, between the
cartel and the government.

The Colombian government,

they get some people
who are close to him,

but they can't get

the man himself.

He's extremely slippery.

- So at this point,

the United States Drug
Enforcement Agency, the DEA,

gets involved.

They partner up
with Search Bloc,

a group of the most elite of
Colombia's national police.

And Search Bloc has
received from the US,

this high-tech surveillance
that allows them

to track Pablo
Escobar's phone calls.

- On December 2nd, 1993, the
Search Bloc tracks Pablo Escobar

in a two-story house in
Los Olivos, Medellin.

- What happens
next is in dispute,

but we do know that
within a very short time,

news spreads around the world,
Escobar has been killed.

- [Laurence] Escobar is
declared dead at age 44,

but his story is far from over.

- The official word is that
the Colombian National Police

were the ones responsible
for taking down Escobar.

[tense music]

- The Colombian government
wants to assume responsibility

because there's a perception

that if the Americans have
credit for killing Escobar,

to come in and kill a
Colombian folk hero,

would be beyond the pale.

The Colombian political elite

want to try to use the
killing of Escobar as proof

that Colombia has
reformed its ways.

- The Colombian government
wants to be able to take credit.

The US government wants to
minimize its own involvement

and play up the idea that
this was Colombia's matter.

They take care of it.

So the idea that
Escobar is killed

by a member of the
Colombian National Police

serves everybody's interests.

- In 1993, there is a lot
of pressure on Colombia

to capture Pablo Escobar.

They've spent years
trying to track him down.

He's been on the run.

There's been a lot of
investment by the United States,

it's providing funding for
this high-tech equipment

that Search Bloc
has been able to use

to track Pablo
Escobar's phone calls.

So the US government is
really putting the pressure

on Colombia to take
Pablo Escobar down.

- Pablo Escobar was
endeared to his family,

especially his son, Juan Pablo.

He would talk to Juan
Pablo almost every day,

and he was also
talking to his wife.

She was talking to
the Colombian press,

relaying his messages.

This was a fatal mistake,

because his phone calls
were being traced.

- Escobar decides that he's
going to talk to his son.

And it's a much
longer phone call,

so they're on the
phone long enough

that they can really track
the call to its source.

- The Search Bloc van,

which was the unit they were
using with their equipment,

then went by that location
and did a physical ID.

They identified Pablo
Escobar standing in a window.

To surround the area, they
put troops on the roof,

across the street, in
the back of the house,

and then they went in.

As soon as they entered the
residence, a shootout occurred.

- And Pablo ends up going
to the second story,

hops onto a roof.

And according to
the official story,

he's running across the roof,
and he's shot three times.

Once in the leg,
once in the back,

and he dies from a
gunshot to the head.

- One of the senior
members of the Search Bloc,

whose name is Hugo Aguilar,
makes a much-disputed claim

that he was the one who
delivered the deadly shot

that killed Pablo Escobar.

- In order to strike

an individual, while
running, in the head

would require a high
level of marksmanship.

So some have questioned
whether Aguilar

was actually that skilled,

and could have made that shot
that killed Pablo Escobar.

- In his book, "Killing Pablo,"

Mark Bowden questions
whether those shots actually

are fired by members of the
Colombian National Police.

The bullet went clear
through his brain,

from his right
ear to his left.

That's a really difficult shot.

- There are a lot of
people speculating, well,

what actually happened?

And who might have been there?

And could somebody else
have fired the shot?

- [Laurence] When
cocaine trafficking kingpin,

Pablo Escobar, dies from a
gunshot wound to the head,

after a shootout with
Colombian police in 1993,

many in Colombia and the US

see it as a cause
for celebration.

- The Colombian government
has been chasing this guy

for years.

He's responsible for just this
wave of death and destruction

throughout the country.

So when he dies, there
are countless parties,

including the United States,

that are thrilled about the fact

that Escobar's finally
been taken down.

But, the question still remains.

Who actually shot and
killed Pablo Escobar?

- [Laurence] According to
the Colombian government,

it's the National Police Force,

specifically an elite
unit known as Search Bloc,

that is solely responsible
for killing Escobar.

- The scene of Escobar's death

left us with a lot of
unanswered questions.

There's a lot of chaos,
a lot of anarchy,

a lot of confusion,

as they're trying to
recover Escobar's body,

and at the same time,
collect any evidence.

- You have all of these officers

that are posing with the body,

allegedly tampering
with the body.

You have all of these other
people that are there,

plain-clothes officers,
members of the media,

civilians that are just
trying to walk near the body

and pose for photos.

So a lot of people begin
to question the story,

due to all of the rumors
and all of this activity

that's happening near the
body of Pablo Escobar.

- Perhaps the official
narrative is wrong.

Perhaps the Colombian
National Police

are not the ones who fired
the fatal shots, but rather,

members of some other elite
agency operating in Colombia.

Some people say that
it was, in fact, the DEA

who killed Escobar.

- This allegation is not
coming out of nowhere.

DEA not only sent its
own agents to Colombia,

they lived in the headquarters
together with the Search Bloc.

They participated in many raids.

They were present
there at all times,

except for that final
moment, allegedly.

- [Laurence] When it comes
to the DEA's involvement,

there are conflicting accounts.

- The official narrative
is that the DEA agents

were not at the scene.

However, there are
members of Search Bloc

who say there were some
Americans on the scene.

- Javier Pena and Steve Murphy

are the two leading DEA agents

actively working
with the Search Bloc

to find and apprehend Escobar.

- There is this famous
photograph taken of Steve Murphy

right next to Escobar's
body after his death,

which makes everyone think
that perhaps they were involved

in the killing of Pablo Escobar.

But he says he was in the
headquarters of the Search Bloc,

and he could hear
everything happening

through the unit's radios.

- Murphy says that,

"Yes, I did take this
photo with Pablo Escobar.

It is real.

But I only posed with the
body after I got to the scene

because Colombian officials
wanted me to take a picture

with the body,

knowing that I had invested
all of these months over a year

in trying to capture
Pablo Escobar."

- They've been embedded for
months with the Search Bloc.

They've been telling
them how to do raids.

So after all of this association
with the Search Bloc,

why in the world
wouldn't Murphy or Pena

be there when it
finally happens?

- But there are some
people that speculate

that while maybe Murphy
and Pena weren't there,

perhaps there were

other Americans that
were on the scene.

In Mark Bowden's
book, "Killing Pablo,"

he theorizes another idea.

These other Americans
were actually

part of American Special
Forces, Army Delta Force.

[upbeat action music]

- Delta Force is the
most elite US Army force

in existence.

They're quiet, scary,
competent operators,

who go down to Colombia
at the request of the DEA,

and start participating in
training Colombian operatives

to take down Escobar.

- Delta Force goes
on countless raids

with the Search Bloc
up to this point.

So it wouldn't be surprising
to learn that Delta Force

is present when Escobar
is finally found.

- One thing that points to
Delta Force's involvement

in the killing of
Escobar is the kill shot.

And the kill shot is a
very, very precise shot.

To pull off a shot like
this, you have to be somebody

that has an extensive
amount of training

when it comes to marksmanship.

They're also
incredibly stealthy.

So the likelihood that
a Delta Force sniper

was on the scene that day,

and Search Bloc didn't know
about it is very plausible.

- [Laurence] Still, it's
clear American officials

want the kill attributed to
the Colombians, not the US.

- Murphy, in his book writes,

"The photo made it seem that
an American had killed Escobar

when all the work had
actually been done

by Colombian law enforcement."

US officials want to conceal
the extent of their involvement

because they want
to promote the idea

that Colombia takes care
of Colombian problems.

- People from the Search Bloc,
particularly its veterans,

are offended with the idea that
it could have been Americans

who killed Pablo Escobar.

And it was disrespectful
to the Colombian police

who were supposed to take the
sole credit for his death.

- However, there's another story

that angers these
veterans even more.

And it's the idea of Search
Bloc working alongside

other criminals to
take out Escobar.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] 10 months before
narco kingpin, Pablo Escobar,

is finally taken down,

he commits one of
his worst atrocities.

- Previously, the Medellin
Cartel would often be

almost surgical in its
application of violence

against a specific target.

By the early 1990s,

they seemed to have abandoned
a lot of that mindset.

Specifically when they
detonated a car bomb

loaded with 100 kilograms of
dynamite in downtown Bogota.

- [Reporter] The attack
is just one in a campaign

of intimidation run by Escobar

since his escape
from jail last year.

At least 20 people were killed.

Many were children being kitted
out for the new school year

in this crowded shopping area.

- Escobar sets off
this bomb as revenge.

His family attempted
to leave the country.

They made it as far as
the airport in Frankfurt,

and then they're
forced to turn around,

and go back to Colombia,

where they're under
guard constantly.

So a bombing is designed to send
a message to the authorities.

Mess with my family, and
I'm going to get you.

- The day after that
car bomb explodes,

there is another retaliation,

but this is not from the
Colombian government.

[bomb exploding]

This is someone else.

A car explodes outside
of Pablo Escobar's house,

and his mother's home
is burned to the ground.

- [Laurence] A group quickly
takes credit for the attacks.

They call themselves Los Pepes.

- Los Pepes stands for People
Persecuted by Pablo Escobar.

So these are his victims,

people who've been
affected by his violence,

who are coming to
avenge all of the damage

that's been done to
victims that they know.

- Many of the leading
figures in Los Pepes

are themselves
cocaine suppliers.

The Cali Cartel was the main
rival to the Medellin Cartel.

They're totally
involved in Los Pepes.

- Los Pepes were matching
the level of violence

that Pablo Escobar
had been known for.

So they were abducting and
murdering any individual

that was associated with
the Medellin Cartel.

They would kill
them, execute them,

hang them from bridges
with a sign, saying,

"This is the work of Los Pepes.

If you work for Pablo Escobar,

you will be targeted
and you will be killed."

- This death squad places
the Colombian government

and these various US agencies
in a bit of a dilemma.

On the one hand,
it's nice to see

Escobar getting a taste of
his own medicine, so to speak.

On the other hand,

if it seems like they
are supporting Los Pepes,

that's also going to look bad.

Because this is a death squad

that's really
doing awful things.

- The DEA and the Colombian
national government

have rules that
they must adhere to.

Los Pepes had no rules.

The only rules were to
use extreme violence

in order to weed out
and kill Pablo Escobar.

- In 1993, Los Pepes
continues their campaign

of killing anyone associated
with Pablo Escobar

and their families.

And then there are these
rumors that perhaps Search Bloc

and the Americans are
sharing intel with Los Pepes,

and that Los Pepes
were on the scene

of Pablo Escobar's killing,

and perhaps it wasn't anyone
from the Colombian government,

and it wasn't an American
who took the kill shot.

[tense music]

- In 2014, so more than 20
years after Escobar's death,

a leading figure of Los
Pepes, Diego Murillo,

more commonly referred
to as Don Berna,

spoke up from his prison cell.

- According to Don Berna,
his brother Rodolfo,

who is also a
member of Los Pepes,

is the one that delivers
the fatal headshot

to Pablo Escobar

with an M16 rifle.

He implies that it
was a good distance,

and it did happen while
Pablo was running.

[gunshot]

- According to Don Berna,

after Rodolfo fires
the killing shot,

the police say,
"Get out of here,"

because the Colombian
National Police

don't want anyone to
know that it's actually

a member of Los Pepes
that killed Pablo Escobar.

- [Laurence] Could Los
Pepes have been working

alongside Search Bloc at the
scene of Escobar's death?

Several sources raised
concerns that these two forces

were directly
collaborating for months,

leading up to the Escobar raid.

- Some of the official
records indicate

that there was
some collaboration

trying to locate Pablo Escobar.

- There's very much a
mindset in Search Bloc

that the enemy of my
enemy is my friend.

If they are
collecting information

from groups like Los Pepes,
or from the Cali Cartel,

they're willing to
take information

anywhere they can get it.

- So this sharing of information
leads people to speculate

that maybe on the day

that Pablo Escobar
was shot and killed,

Los Pepes was on the scene,

and possibly could
have fired the shot

that killed Pablo Escobar.

- The idea that the
Colombian government

might have been partnered
with a criminal element

like Los Pepes to kill
a different criminal,

kind of suggests that Colombia

hasn't really put aside its
violent and corrupt ways.

- Soon after Don Berna
made his statement,

someone even closer to
Escobar comes forward

to offer another view
of how Escobar died.

- [Laurence] In 2014,
Escobar's son, Juan Pablo,

claims that his father
told him multiple times

that he would shoot
himself in the right ear

to avoid being captured alive.

- He's already been shot
in the thigh and the back.

He's not gonna get up.

He's not gonna be able
to escape this time.

The best thing to do,
according to Juan Pablo,

is he finishes himself off.

[tense music]

- Escobar's mantra was
[speaking Spanish],

which means, "Better
a grave in Colombia,

than a jail cell in
the United States."

Given Pablo Escobar's
fear of extradition,

it's not surprising that
he would've gamed out

what he would do if
he was ever caught.

- He was a king.
He was an emperor.

And when you think about
putting him in a cage

for the rest of his life,

for Pablo Escobar,
it was inconceivable.

- Supermax prison in the
United States is no picnic.

El Chapo, the famous Mexican
drug lord, is in one now.

He spends 23 out of
24 hours every day

in solitary confinement.

It's a miserable experience.

- It's not entirely out of
the realm of possibility

that he would've chosen
to take his own life,

rather than be captured,

especially once he
knew he was cornered,

and there was no way out.

The photos of Escobar on
the rooftop the day he died

shows him lying next to
his Sig Sauer pistol.

And that's exactly the same gun

that Juan Pablo said his dad
would use to kill himself.

- [Laurence] Escobar's
family claims

more evidence points to suicide.

They say that when
his body was exhumed

for DNA analysis in 2006,

the nature of his
fatal gunshot wound

confirmed Escobar
took his own life.

Yet, others insist his wound
is inconsistent with suicide.

- Experts say there's
no way Pablo Escobar

took his own life.

If he did, there would
be gunshot residue,

and there wasn't any.

But still, the family is adamant

that Pablo Escobar went out
his own way, on his own terms.

- Who killed Pablo
Escobar is still debated.

But that's not the only
mystery he'd left behind.

In 1993, as authorities
were closing in on Escobar,

he was featured in Forbes
magazine's Billionaire Issue,

writing,

"We suspect that Escobar
will soon leave this list,

perhaps this Earth."

By that year's end,
Escobar was dead.

But the questions about what
happened to his money live on.

- Pablo Escobar is
swimming in cash.

We're talking billions
of dollars in cash.

Think about that for
a second. Paper money.

It's so much money, they
don't know what to do with it.

- They plow it into all
kinds of businesses,

land, buildings, into arts,

but they barely make a dent.

- [Laurence] It's estimated
the Medellin Cartel

loses about 10% of
revenues annually,

amounting to $2.1 billion,

because its cash stockpiles
are destroyed by pests

and the elements.

- We're talking about cash
literally rotting away

in these secret stashes.

Rats and insects chew
their way into the bundles,

moisture ruins the bills.

Mold gets into these
bundles as well.

And Escobar's
making so much money

that he just doesn't care!

It just gets written
off as spoilage.

Just another line on
the balance sheet.

- When Pablo Escobar died, he
was worth about $30 billion.

But only about $112 million
was actually recovered,

which raises the question
and the speculation of,

where did all of that money go?

- The Colombian
government can seize

all of the physical assets
that are impossible to hide.

So they grabbed the houses,
and they grabbed the vehicles,

and they grabbed the boats,
and they grabbed the airplanes.

But what they
couldn't account for

was the enormous volume of cash

that had flown into Colombia.

- So it's to be assumed
that after Escobar's death,

members of his family,
members of rival cartels,

other members of his cartel
are going to descend upon it

and take whatever they can.

- Escobar's operation
was notoriously secretive

and compartmentalized.

No one knew where
Escobar's money was.

And in fact, perhaps even
Escobar himself didn't know,

because there was so much
money coming in for 10 years,

and he was hiding it in so
many places, that possibly,

he forgot about some
of these places.

There are many rumors
about his money

still being up for grabs,

so lots of treasure hunters
begin to search all the places

where he spent some time.

- One of those places
where you might look

was the prison that Escobar
had built to house himself.

La Catedral.

[tense music]

- In 1991, the government is
so tired of chasing Escobar,

so they agree to a
really crazy deal

that Escobar proposes to them.

- Escobar comes up
with what he sees

as a perfectly
reasonable compromise.

As long as he's allowed
to build his own jail,

he promises to stay there,

and so Colombia can take credit
for having imprisoned him.

And amazingly, the Colombian
government goes for it.

- [Laurence] In June of 1991,

Escobar surrendered to
Colombian authorities,

and is subsequently
jailed in a lavish prison

called La Catedral.

- La Catedral is a fortress.

This is how Escobar
can protect himself,

not only from the
army, and the state,

but also from the
rival drug traffickers.

- Escobar's prison

has televisions,

waterfalls, hot tubs.

You name it, he has every
luxury he wants in there.

- From within those walls,

he can continue to operate
the cartel as normal.

His subordinates come and go.

- He is still getting
money delivered to him

by his associates
on the outside.

How are they able to
get it past the guards?

Well, they're doing that by
stashing the money in milk cans.

- It is rumored that as much
as a million dollars in cash

is stuffed into these milk cans,

and using the cover of

the mountain morning fog

that is surrounding
the cathedral,

they use this fog as a way
to sneak into the prison,

to bury these milk
cans in the ground.

- Although being in La
Catedral gives Escobar

a sense of safety
from his rival gangs,

it also starts
making him paranoid.

He starts believing that
some of his associates

are being disloyal to him,

and he has them killed,
right there in the prison.

Of course, this is
a bit of a problem

because he's got guards outside.

According to one report,
he burns the bodies,

and holds a barbecue outside
in order to mask the smell.

- Colombian authorities could
no longer ignore the fact

that Escobar was running
his business as usual

and killing people
in La Catedral.

The Colombian government
makes a decision

to move Escobar to
a different prison.

And as the army approaches,

Escobar of course
finds out about it,

and he escapes one
night in July of 1992.

- [Laurence] Escobar's hurried
exit raises a question.

What happened to the cash
they've supposedly been burying

for 13 months?

- It is reported that
this was not something

that Escobar saw coming,

so he did not have
a whole lot of time

to prepare his escape.

He gathered up what he could
and headed for the hills.

- The moment Escobar escapes,

it basically is left abandoned.

And when it's abandoned,

the treasure hunters
come with pitchforks,

with shovels, with
sledge hammers,

and they search for
money everywhere,

but they come out empty-handed.

- It seems obvious that
there should be milk cans

full of cash still
on the premises.

Why they haven't been
found is a real mystery,

which leads to the possibility

that there's still a whole
lot of money out there

to be grabbed.

- One person specifically
says he knows where it is.

And that person is the money
man of the organization,

and also Pablo
Escobar's brother.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] In October 1992,

while Colombian authorities
desperately searched

for fugitive drug
lord Pablo Escobar,

they get something of
a consolation prize,

his brother, Roberto.

- For a lot of Escobar's career,

his chief money man was
his brother, Roberto.

And in 1992,

Roberto decided he was
tired of all the violence,

he gave himself up, and
was sentenced to prison.

- Roberto Escobar
spends 14 years in jail,

but he's not away from
the violence entirely.

There is a letter bomb that's
delivered to him in prison,

and it severely injures him.

He is blind in one eye.

- [Laurence] In 2009, shortly
after his release from prison,

Roberto Escobar
publishes his memoir,

"The Accountant's Story."

- The book provides
various clues

as to where Escobar's
treasure could be.

According to Roberto Escobar,

the Medellin Cartel wasn't
laundering that much money.

Instead, they were stuffing
it in plastic bags,

and burying it all over the
countryside of Colombia.

- We're talking about an
amazing amount of cash.

In fact, it's estimated
that at the cartel's height,

20% of all the US$100
dollars bills in circulation

were somewhere in Colombia.

There has to be a good chunk
of it still scattered out there

in these remote hiding places.

[tense music]

- Part of the reason
that people don't know

where to look for the
money is that Pablo

was so secretive
about where he hid it.

- The DEA agent Steve
Murphy says that Escobar

would have subordinates shrink
wrap huge stocks of money,

hide them somewhere, and then
he would have them killed,

so that others wouldn't
find out where the money is.

- Pablo Escobar
didn't keep maps,

because he didn't want anybody
to find these locations,

and he certainly didn't
share that information

with a lot of people.

And his brother, the accountant,
he didn't know as well.

- [Laurence] In 2009,

around the same time Roberto
publishes his memoir,

and 16 years after
Pablo's death,

over $5 million is found
in the Colombian jungle

near one of Escobar's
hidden cocaine labs.

- A few months later,

$10 million is
located on the grounds

of the Hacienda Napoles,

which is about 90 miles
outside of Medellin,

and is one of Pablo Escobar's
more famous country estates.

But it isn't until 2015 that
the biggest find takes place.

- 65-year-old farmer,
Jose Mariena Cartolos,

was digging a trench in
his land to irrigate it,

and came upon something
buried in the field.

- He encounters a bunch
of big blue barrels.

He opens these up, and they're
full of cash, $600 million.

- He was shocked to find it.

What's more shocking though,

is the fact that he
contacted the authorities

and informed them about this
money and gave it to them.

- This farmer was just out
doing his annual planting.

He had no connection to Escobar.

He had no idea that this stuff
was planted on his property.

But there it was.

And that tells us a lot
about Escobar's treasure.

- This leads some people
to believe that some of it,

if not a lot of it, is
still buried out there,

ready to be found.

- When it comes to
Pablo Escobar's money,

the Colombian government
has a very simple message

for its citizens.

Keep digging.

- [Laurence] But farm,
fields, and caves

aren't the only potential hiding
places for Escobar's cash.

- In 2020, another discovery
has people thinking

that there's a lot out
there in various safe houses

that Escobar was known to use.

- [Laurence] In 2020, 27
years after his death,

Pablo Escobar is once
again making headlines

across the world, when his
nephew makes a surprising claim.

- Nicolas Escobar comes forward.

He's been living in one of
Pablo Escobar's former estates.

He's Pablo Escobar's nephew.

And he says that
he has this vision

that Escobar is
telling him to look for

some of the stashed riches
in one of the walls.

- One day he goes and
he takes apart the walls

in this one particular
part of the mansion,

and lo and behold,

he claims that he unearths
$18 million in cash.

- This got treasure hunters
excited all over the world,

because they know that
there are so many houses

that used to belong
to Pablo Escobar.

- That money is found
inside a structure.

And Escobar, we knew,
liked to bury money,

and maybe hide it in caves.

But it turns out
he's also hiding it

inside ordinary buildings.

And this is an age old
way of concealing cash

that gangsters have been
using since time immemorial.

But that means any property
that Escobar spent any time at

at all might be the hiding
place for untold riches.

- Just within Colombia,

Escobar owned 140
different properties.

But he was also
known to own them

in all sorts of other places,

including the United
States, by the way.

He hadn't been to the United
States in a long time,

for obvious reasons,
but he owned them.

And maybe those places
have money stashed in them.

- Pablo Escobar
had to be hopping

from property to property
just to elude authorities,

so chances are,

he's probably stashing cash
at each place he's going to

because he had so much of it.

- The theory that money
could be hidden in the walls

and floors of the places

that Pablo Escobar stayed,

and his houses, is confirmed
by his brother, Roberto,

who said that that was
something that he did,

especially when
he was on the run.

- Roberto says, in addition
to all the properties

that Pablo owned
within Colombia,

there are safe houses
in Los Angeles,

Chicago, Miami, New York City.

All of these could conceivably

have large amounts of
cash on the premises.

- And Roberto Escobar
is not the only one

who's confirming this.

Juan Pablo, Pablo Escobar's son,

says he also witnessed
his father stashing money

in some of the walls
and floorboards

of the different safe
houses where he stayed.

- After Escobar's death,

Juan Pablo says his
family went back

and looked in some of the places

he knew that his father
had hidden money,

and it wasn't there anymore.

So he believes it
was taken by others.

- [Laurence] But that hasn't
stopped other treasure hunters

from buying up former
Escobar properties,

and searching for loot.

- One of the properties
that has been linked

to Pablo Escobar's drug
trafficking activities

was a mansion in Miami.

And the owners found
hidden safes in that house.

But when they opened
them, they were empty.

But this is an important find,

'cause it goes to show
that Pablo Escobar

could have other properties
in Miami or New York,

California, in which safes
or hidden compartments

could have money inside them.

- We don't know how thorough
the Colombian government was

in searching for
Pablo's money, cash,

in these various safe houses.

But Pablo Escobar had
so many properties

that we don't even know where
all of these safe houses are.

And the people living
in these homes now

probably aren't even aware that
Pablo Escobar stayed there.

So this may be one of those

"George Washington
slept here" scenarios,

where he stayed at hundreds
of different places,

and may have stored cash there.

- There's probably
billions of dollars

sprinkled all across Colombia,

and other places that were
central to the drug trade

still waiting to be found.

- Pablo Escobar's famous
mugshot can still be found

on T-shirts and knickknacks
across Colombia,

and in fact, the world.

And 15,000 people live in
housing he built for the poor

in a section of Medellin,
still known as Barrio Escobar.

Despite all the suffering and
damage Pablo Escobar caused,

many people remain
fascinated by his life,

and will continue to
search for answers

surrounding his death, and for
the money he allegedly hid.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."

[mysterious music]