A Miami Beach mansion previously owned by Colombian drug lord Paolo Escobar was scheduled for demolition this year. The current owner wants to have it demolished to search for hidden treasure that may have been stashed in the house.
The new owner Christian De Berdouare, who owns a fast food chain Chicken Kitchen and a well-known eccentric millionaire, told the media about the possibility that the drug lord had kept treasures inside the house and he admitted to have been curious about it.
De Berdouare had mentioned that the house was probably used to hide all Escobar's money. It's Escobar's way of saving his riches. He kept them by burying them somewhere around the house. "It could be cash, could be gold, could be jewelry, could be dead bodies -- could be anything," he said.
He also added that Paolo Escobar could have hidden some drugs in the house as well. This is much more sensible because he was a well-known drug lord captured in the late 1980s. It is not clear, however, if the Colombian drug lord has ever visited the property. The mansion was seized from Escobar by the US government in 1987, and he was killed six years later in a special operation in Colombia.
The demolition has already started and will take approximately three weeks to finish the operation. The goal is to dismantle the mansion which measures around 7,300-square-foot or 680-square meter. The Colombian drug lord Paolo Escobar's property has four bedrooms and six bathrooms when he bought it in 1980.
"The producers of the documentary say a hidden safe and '70s-era weapons are part of their storyline so far and that a diagnostic team has found many suspicious areas during sophisticated testing with ground penetrating radar equipment," the press release said.
"Those areas will soon be excavated in search of the hidden money and drugs former DEA agents say may still be buried under the house."
De Berdouare explained the reason why he agreed to have Paolo Escobar's Miami Beach mansion dismantled, he said it is a nice location for his business. The mansion is located in 5860 North Bay which sits on Biscayne Bay nearby La Gorce Golf Course. He didn't care that much about the property. He purchased the house for $10 million in 2014.
