Pablo Escobar committed SUICIDE to stop his family being kidnapped and wasn’t gunned down by cops, drug lord’s own son sensationally claims
PABLO Escobar’s son has said he is "absolutely certain" the infamous drug kingpin took his own life to save his family from being taken hostage.
In an interview to mark the release of his new book, Sebastian Marroquin rubbished claims his father was shot by Colombian police and accused coroners of faking the autopsy report.
He also made extraordinary claims about how the US government bought cocaine from Escobar and used his drug empire to finance the fight against communism.
Mr Marroquin, who changed his name from Juan Pablo Escobar, has revealed his father had always planned to shoot himself in the head to avoid being captured.
"I have the absolute certainty that my father committed suicide," he told Sun Online.
"Coroners who did the autopsy were threatened and forced to change the official report.
"My father always told me the shot that would take his life would stick."
He was just 17-years-old when his father died on a rooftop in Medellin on 2 December 1993 - after over a year on the run.
And Mr Marroquin, now a 39-year-old architect, has revealed he was speaking to the drugs baron on the phone just 10 minutes before he died.
"He never used the phone for years being the most wanted man in the world, until that day when he was found."
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Recalling their last conversation, he said the last words his father spoke to him were "I'll call you right back”.
He said he believed Escobar shot himself to stop his family being taken hostage by his enemies, including the ‘vigilante’ group Los Pepes - People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar’.
Mr Marroquin also remembered the last time he saw his father alive.
"He wept when taking leave of the whole family. As if sensing that was the last time he would see us alive."
Following Escobar’s death, his son said the multi-billion dollar cocaine empire "sank like the Titanic".
During 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 £30billion by importing drugs into the US, making him one of the richest men in the world at the time.
In his second book, Pablo Escobar, In Fraganti translated as Red Handed, Mr Marroquin said there was a "network of corruption" that stretched from Colombia to the US.
He highlighted how 800 kilos of cocaine were flown between Medellin and Miami International Airport each week - allegedly in collusion with US drug officials.
This resulted in more than 64 tons of cocaine being trafficked into the US between 1986 and 1989.
"There are some shocking revelations about my father and the bonds of international corruption that helped him make millions for very important organisations through drug trafficking.
"It is clear that at some point the US decided to buy cocaine from Pablo Escobar and use their services to fund the anti-communist struggle in Central America.”
Interest in Escobar’s story has been reignited thanks to Netflix’s hit show Narcos which is set to enter its third season next year.
But Mr Marroquin has slammed the show and previously took to Facebook to list the 28 points he described as outright lies in the Emmy Award nominated-show.
He also told Sun Online how he offered producers unrestricted access to extensive family archive of photographs and video.
"But they preferred to buy the version of the DEA where nobody ever met my father in person, but through records.
"So far no series has treated seriously the story of Pablo Escobar," he claimed.
Mr Marroquin has tried to distance himself from his father’s legacy and has even apologised to the children of victims of assassinations ordered by his father during his reign as ‘El Patron del Mal’.
And now he is focused on ensuring the next generation – including his own three-year-old son, Juan Emilio - does not repeat his father’s mistakes.
Pablo Escobar Red Handed: What My Father Never Told Me has been published in Colombia and it is set for wider release at the start of next year.
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