The drug-carrying submarine of 'boss' Escobar

Escobar used submarines to transport cocaine from Colombia to Puerto Rico, and then on to the US. If his submarine is found, it could hold clues to where he hid his £50bn fortune.

Divers working for the CIA are currently exploring a secret location off the coast of Colombia, The Sun reports. A Discovery Channel segment followed two former CIA agents on the hunt for Escobar's treasure.

In a video posted on YouTube by Discovery UK, former CIA agents Doug Laux and Ben Smith dive into the ocean but fail to dig up anything valuable.

Underwater cameras showed them scouring the seabed, finding pieces of metal and a box but no clues to the money. Still, the team concluded that shifting sand on the seabed had probably moved the wreck, and they hoped to find it in the vicinity.

Pablo Escobar was the boss of the Medellin cartel, which supplied 80% of the cocaine consumed in the US in the 1980s. In the 1970s, Escobar was so successful that he had 15 planes and 6 helicopters to help smuggle drugs into the US. By the mid-1980s, his gang was earning nearly $22 billion a year.

Most of Escobar’s assets were in cash and stored in various locations. It is believed that he spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands to tie up his money.

In 1989, Escobar was listed by Forbes magazine as the 7th richest person in the world. He was also considered a hero by locals for donating money to the poor in Colombia and building houses for the homeless. In 1993, Escobar was shot dead.

Much of Escobar’s treasure has never been found. In 2009, about $8 million of his money was found in a secret complex deep in the jungle that had once been a cocaine processing plant.