Jose Mariena Cartolos, 65, recently received a $3,000 grant from the Colombian government to start a palm oil plantation on a lot of lands that have been in his family for more than 200 years.
While digging a trench for irrigation purposes on his land, Cartolos struck something peculiar. After taking a further look, he discovered several large, blue containers. What he found inside was unthinkable. The containers were filled to the brim with cold hard cash, totalling $600,000,000!
That is not a misprint, the money is said to be a part of Pablo Escobar’s $30 billion fortune that is said to be buried throughout the country.
Of course, Cartolos will not be able to keep the money. The money is expected to be used by the Colombian government to help with social and economic programs (in true Escobar fashion duh). Inside Hollywood speculates that this discovery will cause a new “Gold Rush,” in tourism drawing treasure hunters to the Colombian countryside in search of hidden treasure.
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949 – December 2, 1993) was a notorious Colombian drug lord who at the height of his career, supplied about 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the US.
Known as “The King of Cocaine”, he was the wealthiest criminal in history, with an estimated known net worth of US$30 billion by the early 1990s, and approximately US$50 billion when including money that was buried in different areas of Colombia.
At the height of its power, Pablo Escobar’s drug cartel was smuggling fifteen tons of cocaine (worth more than half a billion dollars) into the United States every single day.
He made so much money that he had to spend $1000 per week purchasing rubber bands to wrap the stacks of cash.
The news that a Colombian farmer finds $600,000,000 in drug money buried on his farm has created a modern-day “Gold Rush” as people are now flocking to the Colombian countryside with echo sounders and all kinds of scanning equipment, searching for more of Pablo Escobar’s hidden money pits.
When Pablo was finally killed, the location of many of these money pits died with him. The CIA estimates there to be about 100 of these money pits that have yet to be discovered, each containing between five hundred million to one billion dollars.
Fast forward to today. Meet Jose Mariena Carlos, a 65-year-old farmer who recently received a $3000 grant from the Colombian government to help him start a palm oil plantation on land that has been in his family for over 200 years.