Drug Lord Pablo Escobar's Hidden Safe Found in Mansion Wall
A secret safe was discovered on the Miami Beach property where the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar once owned a mansion.
CBS News reports that, as the house was demolished, a construction worker named Miguel Mato found the safe hidden away in the concrete foundation of the last wall set to be knocked down. The safe, which weighs 1,325 pounds, is suspected of holding a fortune in stashed cash and jewels.
Mato described to local media the surprise he felt upon finding the safe.
"I pulled the wall down, and when the wall fell, it's actually like a hollow floor. And when the wall fell on the floor, it kind of broke into it and then I saw it. I saw the safe," he said.
Property owner Christian de Berdouare was initially skeptical of Mato’s discovery.
"I told the owner, 'Look there's a safe,"' Mato said. "And he thought I was messing with him, and I said, 'No there's a safe for real."'
This is actually the second safe to be found on the site. When Escobar’s Miami mansion was demolished last week, de Berdouare said a floor safe was found and soon went missing. In an effort to keep this from happening again, the newly discovered safe was strapped down to a flatbed truck and moved to a secure location.
As quoted in the BBC, de Berdouare said, "For us, this is the holy grail."
Legally, de Berdouare and his wife, Jennifer Valoppi, are entitled to keep anything discovered on their property.
Meanwhile, as reported by the Miami Herald, Valoppi, a TV journalist, is currently making a documentary film about the mansion and its ties to Escobar, who was shot and killed by Colombian police in 1993.
De Berdouare, the CEO and owner of the Chicken Kitchen restaurant chain, has speculated that the safe might be filled with jewels and precious metals.
"I think that it has gold or diamonds,” he said. “Who knows?”
As reported in Business Insider, de Berdouare had earlier expressed his happiness about razing Escabor's mansion.
"I'm very excited to see the house of the devil disappearing right before our eyes," he said.
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