

One is Jorge Lara, the son of Rodrigo Lara, a Colombian justice minister who was one of Escobar's fiercest critics. In addition, he and his mother were briefly imprisoned on money-laundering charges, but were cleared by Argentina's Supreme Court in 2006.Īfter that, rather than hiding from his past, Marroquín began giving conferences on what he's learned from his family's violent legacy. But when clients learned his true identity, work dried up. In Buenos Aires, Marroquin studied industrial design and architecture. "I was afraid to go into McDonald's and order a burger. Accustomed to bodyguards and servants, Marroquín was suddenly on his own. After receiving new identities from the Colombian government, Marroquin, along with his girlfriend, mother and sister, moved to Argentina. Not only was he traumatized by his father's violent death, but the rival Cali cartel had vowed to kill surviving Escobar family members. Marroquin, who was only 16, decided to forge his own path. In 1993, Pablo Escobar was gunned down on a Medellín rooftop by Colombian police. "I asked myself: What's the point of having so much money if you can't even go out to the corner grocery to buy bread?" he says. Marroquín recalls going hungry, even though one of their hideouts was overflowing with $3 million in cash.

However, his high-priced toys were impossible to enjoy because the Escobars were constantly on the run. He asked his father for an F-15 fighter jet on his 14th birthday but instead received a Ferrari Testarossa.
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But his surreal stories, along with a slideshow of family photos, hold the audience for the full 90 minutes.Īs a teenager, Marroquín owned a fleet of motorcycles and had his own bachelor pad. Speaking in a flat monotone behind the podium, Marroquín, 39, lacks a dynamic stage presence. "We had every type of luxury you could imagine." "We had many cars, houses, helicopters and airplanes," Marroquín tells a crowd packed into a bullring in the Mexican city of Aguascalientes. In the course of shipping tons of Colombian cocaine to the United States, he became a billionaire. He was responsible for the deaths of some 3,000 Colombians. "I feel I have a moral responsibility to go before society, recognize my father's crimes and to apologize to the victims of these crimes," Marroquín tells NPR.ĭuring the 1980s and early 90s, Pablo Escobar, the founder of the Medellín cocaine cartel, exploded car bombs, killed policemen and blew up an airliner. And he spends much of his time barnstorming across Latin America as a motivational speaker, denouncing the illegal drug trade and his father's ultra-violent ways. In response to the many homes and offices his father destroyed with car bombs, he studied architecture so he could put up buildings. The son, the former Juan Pablo Escobar, has changed his name to Sebastián Marroquín. Like the offspring of other crime godfathers, the son of the late Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar was expected to follow his father into the family business. "I feel I have a moral responsibility to go before society, recognize my father's crimes and to apologize to the victims of these crimes," Marroquín tells NPR. Sebastian Marroquin, son of Colombia's late drug lord Pablo Escobar, spends much of his time barnstorming across Latin America as a motivational speaker, denouncing the illegal drug trade and his father's ultra-violent ways.
