Feral Jundi

 “Pablo was earning so much that each year we’d write off ten per cent of the money because rats would eat it in storage or it would be damaged by water or lost.

“We had so much money we would spend as much as $2,500 on rubber bands just to hold it together. We’d holiday in Las Vegas, where we’d have dinner with Frank Sinatra, on petty cash.”

   This story will be interesting to watch and I wish Mr. Miller and his crew all the luck with their mission to recover this money.  By the way, I have not read the book, nor do I know the locations of this stuff.  I guess if you want a shot at Scarface’s Millions, you will have to pick up a copy of this book and do some research.  Although it sounds like Mr. Miller’s team is pretty much at the lead for this race. –Matt

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RACE FOR SCARFACE’S MILLIONS

DAILY STAR SUNDAY

ABOVE: Pablo Escobar, left

3rd May 2009

By Mike Parker

A DESPERATE race is on to find a fortune stashed in secret locations by dead drug baron Pablo Escobar.

And at least one team of British mercenaries is joining the hunt in the Colombian jungle.

It was triggered by astonishing claims over the whereabouts of Escobar’s evil earnings in a new book.

Escobar’s surviving brother, Roberto – a former cartel “accountant” – claims the drug baron left millions salted away in Swiss bank accounts.

The accounts were known only to Escobar – whose rise inspired the 1983 Al Pacino film Scarface – and the untold wealth deposited in them is likely to be lost forever.

But in his book Escobar: The Untold Story Of The World’s Most Powerful Criminal, Roberto tells how more cash was simply buried before Escobar died in a bloody shoot-out with troops and US drug agents in December 1993.

So far only $10million and an arsenal of weapons has been recovered from underground vaults at a sprawling complex called La Catedral, built in the jungle by Escobar.

“Pablo celebrated his 42nd birthday there with champagne and caviar,” wrote Roberto, who was released from prison in 2004 after serving 12 years for criminal conspiracy.

But further enormous stashes remain buried in or near other properties owned by Escobar in Colombia and Mexico.

Roberto added: “Pablo was earning so much that each year we’d write off ten per cent of the money because rats would eat it in storage or it would be damaged by water or lost.

“We had so much money we would spend as much as $2,500 on rubber bands just to hold it together. We’d holiday in Las Vegas, where we’d have dinner with Frank Sinatra, on petty cash.”

At the height of his power, Escobar, who was 44 when he was shot to pieces, was listed by Forbes Magazine as the seventh richest man in the world.

Now the “winner takes all” race is on to be first to unearth the buried booty he left behind.

Brit mercenary John Miller is already believed to have assembled a fighting force ready to take on cartel leaders and their “soldiers” in the  scramble to pinpoint the cash.

Miller is a Glasgow-born former Scots Guard who masterminded the kidnap of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1981.

Bound and gagged, Biggs was smuggled by sea to Barbados. But the plot to return him to face justice in Britain unravelled when authorities on the island revealed there was no extradition treaty.

Through an intermediary, Miller, now 56, said yesterday: “My men will be ready for any

rumble in the jungle.

“The team includes six former SAS men who have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are better trained and better equipped than any other fighting force that they are likely to encounter.”

Miller said Roberto’s book had “blown the lid off” the 16-year mystery over the location of the booty, which was growing by $3million a week in the late 1970s.

And he claimed: “We have intelligence beyond the little that is divulged in the pages of that book.

“We also have the technical expertise to be able to extract our target swiftly and efficiently, whoever chooses to stand in our path.”

As well as luxury compounds, Escobar owned dozens of properties and employed thousands of people during his rise to power.

The drug baron even built enormous labs in the jungle, some of which grew into mini cities, complete with schools and satellite TV stations, according to his brother’s book.

When US drug enforcement agents rumbled his smuggling methods, Escobar switched to delivering cocaine to Miami via his fleet of speedboats and private jets.

Later, inspired by a James Bond film, he even built two submarines which could each carry 1,000 kilos of cocaine.

In his book, Roberto wrote: “The Americans began using surveill- ance planes but Pablo paid a Customs agent $250,000 for the flight schedules.

“He also paid out $1.5million to bribe a Panamanian general to turn a blind eye to just one particularly large shipment.”

Story here.

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Biggs Bagged

Monday, Apr. 06, 1981

Time Magazine 

“It’s a crying shame “

Nearly two decades after he and some chums relieved the Glasgow-to-London mail train of $7.3 million in 1963, Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs, 51, left his Rio de Janeiro beach-front apartment for a local barbecue-and-beer hall. Before he had time to finish his first drink, two men wrestled him out the front door and into the back of a waiting Volkswagen bus. It took less than a minute.

In the back of the van, Biggs was drugged, thrown into a canvas sack and driven to Rio’s Santos Dumont Airport, where he was dumped into the luggage compartment of a rented Learjet. He was then flown 1,529 miles to the northeastern Brazilian city of Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon, and hustled aboard the How Can I II, a luxury yacht chartered in Antigua two weeks earlier. His abductors ordered the two-man charter crew to set a course back toward the Caribbean.

The four-day voyage ended unexpectedly when the yacht developed engine trouble southeast of Barbados. Escorted into Bridgetown harbor by the Barbados coast guard, the still-groggy Biggs and his mysterious abductors were transferred to a Bridgetown prison for questioning, leaving Barbados officials to puzzle over their bizarre story. The unscheduled stop meant big problems for Biggs: once out of extradition-proof Brazil, the self-confessed thief faced for the first time since he escaped from London’s Wandsworth Prison in 1965 the prospect of being haled back to Britain and up to 30 years in jail.

The kidnapers were identified as agents of a new British firm called Single Point Security Ltd., then released on the grounds that no immigration laws were violated. They were hired by John Miller, a British ne’er-do-well and hanger-on at the fringes of London’s upper crust. Miller claimed he had been paid nearly $70,000 by an unknown benefactor for advance rights to the story and film rights of Biggs’ capture. Explained Miller: “I have no personal vindictiveness against Biggs. I guess he robbed his train for the same reason we’re doing this — for money.”

Though Biggs has been one of Britain’s most wanted men for 16 years, most Britons are scandalized that he may be forced to come home so ignominiously. Said Buster Edwards, 50, a Biggs accomplice who served nine years for the famous heist before being paroled: “It’s a crying shame. The people who snatched Ronnie are nothing short of animals. I’m sick about it all.” Who says there is no honor among thieves? 

Story Here.

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Book: Former Soldier Seeks Employment

By John Miller

A former Scots Guardsman in Borneo, N Ireland (with SG and undercover) & attempting kidnap of  Ronnie Biggs in Rio.

From the dingy backstreets of Belfast to the exotic fleshpots of Rio, from the tough discipline of the British Army to uproarious international tours with wild rock stars, John Miller has plied his trade as soldier of the Queen and soldier of Fortune.

As one of the elite fighting men of the Brigade of Guards, he operated secretly in the brutal undercover war against the Provisional IRA in Ulster.  But he threw secrecy to the wind to snatch Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs from his bolt-hole in Brazil, taking over where Scotland Yard had failed to put the

notorious thief and jail-breaker behind bars.

On a small island in the Gulf of Mexico, on the trail of the fugitive Lord Lucan, John Miller had an armed showdown which made interantional headlines.

On the plains of a Central American republic he led a rag-tag guerrilla army in a revolt aimed at overthrowing hte government.

From a hidden city ringed with armed guards he snatched the daughter of a millionaire from the clutches of a bizarre religious cult.

Adventurous, outrageous, brave, foolhardy, John Miller is one of the country’s most sought-after private soldiers.

Now the the first time he reveals all about the clients who have hired him, the identities of those who have required his special services and the truth behind his most daring escapades.

Link to Book Here.