MIAMI, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- The Miami Beach home formerly belonging to Pablo Escobar, Colombia's most notorious drug trafficker, will be demolished on Tuesday.
The federal government reportedly never searched the waterfront home when it was seized in 1987, generating rumors about possibly hidden wealth. Most recently, the property, on North Bay Road on Miami Beach, was purchased in 2014 by Chicken Kitchen founder Christian de Berdouaré and his wife Jennifer Valoppi, a former local news anchor, for $9.6 million.
The four-bedroom, six-bathroom home on Biscayne Bay was built in 1948. Escobar bought the property in March 1980 for $762,500. It will be part of a documentary about the home's past.
"We want to close a very dark chapter in the history of Miami," Valoppi said, the Miami Herald reports, adding that Escobar "killed so many people. We want to erase those memories and create something new and inspiring."
Escobar was regarded as the "King of Cocaine" with a net worth thought to be about $24 billion -- recognized by Forbes magazine at the height of his power as the world's seventh-richest man.
Escobar was imprisoned for about a year before he escaped in 1992. He spent several months on the run before he was shot to death by a special police unit in 1993.
