MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) – A vestige of the drug wars that made Miami notorious for violence and smuggling in the 1980s is being razed, with its new owners anxiously sifting through the wreckage for any last traces of the reign of Pablo Escobar.
Demolition began Tuesday on a pink waterfront mansion in Miami Beach that the Colombian drug lord owned before the U.S. government seized it in 1987. Escobar died in a shootout with Colombian National Police in 1993.
“I’m very excited to see the house of the devil disappearing right before our eyes,” said the property’s new owner, Christian de Berdouare, who owns the Chicken Kitchen fast-food chain.
“This was the biggest criminal in the history of the world. I would like to be associated with something more uplifting, but nevertheless, it is a part of the city,” he said.
Though the mansion was listed under Escobar’s own name, it’s unclear whether he ever spent any time in Miami Beach.