Pablo Escobar burnt £1m in cash to keep warm on the run

The Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar burnt cash worth more than £1 million to keep his daughter warm during a single night on the run, his son has claimed.

Pablo Escobar: Pablo Escobar burnt £1m in cash to keep warm on the run
Pablo Escobar: This photo taken 10 Aug at the Enviagado Prison shows Colombian drug kingpin and head of the Medellin Cartel,Pablo Escobar,posing as Pancho Villa Credit: Photo: AFP

The infamous cocaine baron is said to have lit a bonfire using wads of US dollars at a mountain hideout while he was being hunted by authorities.

Sebastian Marroqui­n, who has changed his name from Juan Pablo Escobar, claimed his father burnt the notes when he realised his daughter Manuela was suffering from hypothermia.

They also used the fire, fuelled by $2 million in cash, to prepare food.

Escobar's son, who moved with his family to Argentina after his father's death 15 years ago, also told the Colombian magazine Don Juan the security-mad billionaire bought his own taxi firm to find out when outsiders arrived in their native Medellin. He also moved his family every 48 hours between 15 hideaways he had all over the city.

He even blindfolded them before each move so that they could never work out the whereabouts of each house and give the locations to torturers if they were captured.

Escobar, head of the infamous Medellin Cartel, was shot dead in December 1993 as he tried to escape police.

At the height of his power in 1989, he was ranked the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine with an estimated £18 billion fortune.