The fate of Pablo Escobar’s money

Pablo Escobar he accumulated an immense amount of money while he lived and led the Medellin cartel. It is said that, for example, one night when his family was cold in a hideout where they were he did not hesitate to burn two million dollars to make a fire and warm them up.

However, according to his wife, Victoria Eugenia Henao, known as ‘la Tata’, after the death of her partner, his enemies summoned her to settle accounts and she had to dispossess herself of several properties, counting on those that were in the name of the drug trafficker.

These details were made known through the book of his authorship called My life and my prison with Pablo Escobar.

In a magazine publication Week It is detailed that Henao revealed that the collection made by the approximately 40 drug traffickers amounted to 120 million dollars, which she handed over so that they would not harm her, her children or Escobar’s family.

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Those drug traffickers asked her for that money, according to her, for the expenses in the conflict with Escobar and for the damages that he caused them and that they were related to murders, damage to their properties, kidnappings and other events.

Who received the money?

In her book, ‘la Tata’ refers to those who asked her for the money and pointed out that among them were several of those who worked with her husband as “Popeye”, “Giovanni”, “Mugre”, “Otto” and “Arete”.

He added that had to negotiate with “the main drug lords in Colombia”, action that was led by the brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela and the heads of the Cali cartel. This process lasted at least 8 months, in 1994, and some of the deliveries of Escobar’s assets were made to drug traffickers José “Chepe” Santacruz and Hélmer ‘Pacho’ Herrera, at the headquarters of the América de Cali club.

According to the woman, to carry out all the transactions needed two accounting consultants and seven lawyers, who helped him organize the list of goods with which he paid the demands of the drug traffickers. Finally, just over 60 goods appeared on the list.

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“The meeting was long and tedious because they dedicated themselves to choosing one by one the 62 goods included in the list that I brought. But unlike our first meeting, I thought it was another good sign that they agreed to receive 50% of the debt in seized assets and the remaining percentage in properties ready to market, yes, free of legal constraints. That of appropriating ‘troubled’ goods had an explanation: their connections in the upper echelons of the State they would help them ‘launder’ Pablo’s assets, leaving out his heirs. Which obviously happened,” the widow said.

In other sections of the book, Henao refers again to the delivery of goods and adds some details, such as what land he had to give and to whom. “The extensive and expensive land was attached to the Montecasino mansion, with which Fidel expanded his economic power.” Here he mentioned that the paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño, by imposition of his brother, Fidel Castaño, received a nine-hectare lot.

He also said that the Castaños took over at least a dozen lots in central locations in Medellín, “where years later some luxurious hotels and expensive shopping centers were built” and they kept two paintings that amount to 3 million dollars.

The widow also indicated that other drug lords shared out “a complex of apartment towers in El Poblado, near Loma del Tesoro, acquired by Pablo in the 1980s, more than 10 apartments of the place were available”.

He added that one of his sisters-in-law also kept a part of Escobar’s fortune, Well, he stayed with a penthouse in El Poblado, located in Medellín.

“A farm in the Llanos Orientales (…) of one hundred thousand hectares and, of course, it was highly coveted by my husband’s enemies, among other things because it had a landing strip”; however, she did not mention which of the drug traffickers stayed with her. He also assured that he found out about this property after the death of the drug trafficker.

Pablo Escobar and his testament

Magazine Week met one of Escobar’s first wills, in which he specifies that half of his assets, in case of death, would go to his wife, Victoria Eugenia Henao; to his then only son, Juan Pablo, what corresponded to him by law, in addition to his entire collection of antique and classic cars. Regarding future female daughters, later Manuela would be born, she clarified that from the “fourth improvement that the law grants” they would receive goods, furniture, fixtures, porcelain, ornaments or appliances.

As for his parents and siblings, they would have 99% of the fourth part of the entire fortune and he destined 1% to an aunt.

However, John Paul confessed in his book My father that there was a conflict with the Escobar Gaviria family. It says: “We were willing to comply to the letter with his will expressed in that 50% corresponded to my mother as a conjugal partner, 37.5 was for me and the remaining 12.5, called the Fourth of Free Disposition, for my grandparents, Hermilda and Abel, for my paternal uncles and an aunt of theirs”.

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in this will there is no talk of amounts of money and the annexes of the estates are almost unobtainable; there is talk of a list of high-value works of art, already dismembered and sold in Colombia.

Some time later there was talk of a second testament, drawn up for various reasons: Manuela’s birth and the persecution unleashed against the extraditables. In this document he removed some brothers from the division. In said will there is talk of a fortune of about 120 million dollars, a much lower value considering that Forbes came to appraise Escobar’s estate at 3,500 million dollars at the end of the 1980s. (I)