Pablo Escobar’s son Sebastian Marroquin reveals how the cocaine kingpin warned him drugs could destroy his life
The narcotics tycoon also showed his boy around his drug factories when he was nine-years-old
THE son of infamous cocaine tycoon Pablo Escobar has revealed his father told him NEVER to do drugs despite narcotics making him a billionaire.
In an exclusive interview, Sebastian Marroquin says his infamous dad took him on tours of his cocaine factories when he was nine-years-old telling him "Son, I am a professional criminal."
The 38-year-old described a childhood surrounded by drugs, while his father - then thought to be earning £322million a week - repeatedly warned him of their dangers.
At the height of his powers in the 1980s, Escobar ran Colombia's Medellin Cartel with brutal efficiency.
Some 7,000 people are thought to have died during his bloody war with the Colombian government, while he amassed as much as £23billion by importing drugs into the US.
Escobar was finally caught and killed by Colombian special forces in December 1993 - after spending more than a year on the run with his family.
Sebastian, born Juan Pablo Escobar, was aged just 16 at the time.
He told that his father explained to him the true nature of the family business when he was aged just seven.
He said: “When I was seven or eight, we were in Panama and my dad said to me, ‘Son, I am a professional criminal’.
“My dad always told me what he was involved in, but at seven, you don’t realise the magnitude of those words.
“He warned me about drugs from an early age.
"I was eight when he laid out all the types of available drugs on a table in front of me and sat me by his side and told me everything about them - what they were called, what effects they had, what they looked like.
"When I was nine he took me to one of his cocaine factories. He wanted me to be very clear of the dangers of drugs, impressing on to me that he who doesn't try them is the brave one."
Sebastian also told of growing up with unimaginable riches.
The family would send parcels of food to friends at Christmas time via helicopter, flowers were delivered to the house by private jet and they ate from a 24-piece gold dinner set worth £300,000.
He explained that during his father's time on the run, the pair were hidden in an abandoned home in Medellin while cops searched all the surrounding properties.
"All we had left was millions of dollars in cash but we were dying of hunger. We couldn't leave the house even though we could have bought an entire supermarket."
During his time at the head of the cartel, Escobar was earning so much cash he was unable to launder it all.
It ended up being stored in farms, houses and warehouses - where billions are thought to have been lost.
His brother and accountant Roberto wrote in his book: "Pablo was earning so much that each year we would write off 10 percent of the money because the rats would eat it in storage or it would be damaged by water or lost."
In another instance, Escobar torched £1.5million in bank notes to keep his family warm while they were on the run.
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