MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Local 10 News was given access inside the Miami Beach home of former drug lord Pablo Escobar on the eve of its demolition.
Escobar purchased the waterfront property at 5860 N. Bay Road for $762,500 on March 20, 1980, although the paper deed obtained by Miami-Dade County property records shows he paid just $10.
The property offers a picturesque view of Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami. It was purchased in 2014 and will be demolished to make room for the current owner's new house.
Escobar was the head of the Medellin Cartel and is believed to have supplied the United States with 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the country. He was killed in a shootout with police in Colombia in 1993.
New owner Christian Berdouare heard stories from neighbors about secret carter operations that Escobar orchestrated from his flamingo pink home on the bay.
Filmmaker Billy Corben, whose "Cocaine Cowboys" documentary chronicled Escobar and the cartel business that put Miami on the vice map, said the DEA seized the house in 1987.
"By 1990, the DEA in South Florida owned probably more real estate than anybody else," Corben said.
The owner has spent the past week with construction crews punching holes in the walls, floors and yard looking for Escobar's hidden spoils.
Local 10 News reporter Glenna Milberg said they did find something, although what and from where is a secret to be revealed in an upcoming documentary.
"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," Berdouare said.