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Pablo Escobar’s Drug-Smuggling Submarine Found by Ex-CIA Divers

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Pablo Escobar’s Drug-Smuggling Submarine Found by Ex-CIA Divers
A woman shows an album with pictures of late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar at her home in the Pablo Escobar neighborhood in Medellin, Colombia, on Dec. 2, 2015. Escobar is still revered by many people. (Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images)
John Smithies
1/23/2018
Updated:
9/26/2019

Drug baron Pablo Escobar’s missing $70 billion fortune may soon be found after ex-CIA agents tracked down one of his smuggling submarines.

At one time Escobar supplied 80 percent of all the cocaine consumed in the United States and earned around $445 million a week in the 1980s.

Escobar used submarines to transport large amounts of cocaine from Colombia to Puerto Rico before the cartel used speedboats to take the drugs to Miami.

One of these subs has now been found, with the ex-CIA agents exploring the site on the hunt for the missing money.

This photo taken Aug. 10, 1992,  at the Envigado Prison shows Colombian drug kingpin and head of the Medellin Cartel, Pablo Escobar, posing as Pancho Villa. (Guillermo Tapia/AFP/Getty Images)
This photo taken Aug. 10, 1992,  at the Envigado Prison shows Colombian drug kingpin and head of the Medellin Cartel, Pablo Escobar, posing as Pancho Villa. (Guillermo Tapia/AFP/Getty Images)

Doug Laux and Ben Smith, formerly of the CIA, led a team for the Discovery TV show “Finding Escobar’s Millions.”

“My job in the agency was finding people—finding bad guys,” Laux told The Sun.

“So, you have kind of that same scenario here, if it’s anything that somebody wants to keep a secret, and they keep in the dark, that’s kind of where Ben and I thrive at getting in there and shining some light on it,” said Laux.

The mother of Pablo Escobar, Hermilda Gaviria (C), rides in a car taking Escobar's casket to a funeral home, Dec. 2, 1993, from the local coroners office in Medellin, Colombia. She is accompanied by an unidentified relative (L) and an unidentified man. Escobar was killed in Medellin by members of a police and army elite group formed to hunt for the head of the Medellin drug cartel. (B/AFP/Getty Images)
The mother of Pablo Escobar, Hermilda Gaviria (C), rides in a car taking Escobar's casket to a funeral home, Dec. 2, 1993, from the local coroners office in Medellin, Colombia. She is accompanied by an unidentified relative (L) and an unidentified man. Escobar was killed in Medellin by members of a police and army elite group formed to hunt for the head of the Medellin drug cartel. (B/AFP/Getty Images)

Divers were sent to the location where the sub would have surfaced.

A recent storm shifted seabed sand enough so they could search the site.

And although the divers didn’t uncover any treasure, they did find a box and sheets of metal.

The team view the find as a step on the way to finally finding Escobar’s drug millions.