Legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar lost $2.1 billion in cash each year - and it didn't matter

Pablo EscobarAP

Known as the "king of cocaine," Escobar's wealth was so immense that he stashed piles of cash in Colombian farming fields, dilapidated warehouses, and in the walls of cartel members' homes, according to Roberto Escobar, the cartel's chief accountant and the kingpin's brother, in his book, "The Accountant's Story: Inside the violent world of the Medellín cartel."

"Pablo was earning so much that each year we would write off 10% of the money because the rats would eat it in storage or it would be damaged by water or lost," Escobar wrote.

Escobar simply had more money than he knew to do with, and therefore haphazardly losing money to rodents and mold wasn't an issue.

According to a 2009 Don Juan magazine interview with Escobar's only son, Juan Pablo Escobar, who has since changed his name to Sebastian Marroqui­n, claimed that his father once torched $2 million crisp banknotes in order to keep his family warm while they were on the run, The Telegraph reports.

While hiding or destroying the exorbitant amount of money was one issue, the brothers faced another much more elementary problem - neatly organizing the banknotes.

According to Escobar, the cartel spent an estimated $2,500 a month on rubber bands needed to hold stacks of bills together.

At the height of his power, Escobar's cartel supplied 80% of the world's cocaine and smuggled 15 tons of cocaine into the US per day.