It was popular on g1: Pablo Escobar’s pilot had a lion as a pet and a salary of R$332 million to transport tons of drugs

Pablo Escobar’s pilot had a lion as a pet and a salary of R$332 million to transport tons. Pilot Tirso Dominguez was a smuggler hired by Pablo Escobar in the 1980s. He was arrested in 1991, but only now, in 2025, did he tell the whole story. The journey includes a lion as a “pet”, a salary of R$332 million and the transport of tons of cocaine Throughout December, g1 revisits the craziest – and real – stories published in 2025. Watch the video above, read the text below and explore other reports on the map at the end of this page. The original article was published in June. GIF Retrospective – It went viral on g1: Pablo Escobar’s pilot had a lion as a pet and a salary of R$332 million to transport tons of drugs G1 art editor Dominguez had his first interview after being arrested on the Cocaine Air podcast, and the British newspaper The Guardian had access to excerpts of the conversation on June 11. He says he became involved in drug trafficking in the late 1970s, when he was around 20 years old, and began flying planes to make money smuggling marijuana from the Bahamas and Colombia to the US. It all started when his father, a South Florida real estate developer, died unexpectedly of cancer while building a sugar factory in Haiti. Before his death, his father had secured a $14 million loan from two bankers. But, after his death, bankers refused to release the amount to his son, who also suffered a US$100,000 scam (approximately R$536,000). Desperate to raise capital, Dominguez ended up learning to fly planes to raise some money. Dominguez said that, during the illegal transport of drugs, he mistakenly delivered US$800,000 (about R$4.4 million) worth of marijuana to the wrong recipient. This caused his suppliers to kidnap him and threaten to kill his family if he didn’t compensate the losses quickly. According to the Guardian, Dominguez stated that the quickest way to recover the amount was to travel with the plane loaded with cocaine. “I never wanted to get involved with cocaine because the cocaine dealers were the bad guys… responsible for all the deaths,” he stated. “I don’t tolerate drugs. I’ve never done drugs.” Even so, this first flight earned Dominguez US$1 million (R$5.5 million) to pay his suppliers. He claims this was profitable enough that he decided to start transporting cocaine full time without missing a shipment. Pilot Tirso Dominguez was a smuggler hired by Pablo Escobar Disclosure / Podcast Cocaine Air Dominguez said that this control over deliveries caught Escobar’s attention. “Pablo Escobar didn’t mean anything to me,” Dominguez tells Cocaine Air. “I was full of myself. I walk on water, you know? I earn US$4 million (R$22.15 million) a month,” said Dominguez. Escobar then offered to pay Dominguez for four flights a month at US$5 million (R$27.6 million) per trip. Dominguez thought that US$20 million (R$110.7 million) per month – the equivalent of US$60 million (R$332.26 million), considering inflation – was too much to pass up. The amount, however, turned out to be too high, which made Escobar pay Domínguez with cocaine. He then went from smuggler to drug dealer, which meant, in addition to taking drugs from one place to another, he also sold them and received a profit. “By day, I operated the largest Lamborghinis dealership in the world. By night, I transported tons of cocaine for Pablo Escobar,” he said. “I did what no other smuggler had done in the history of smuggling,” Dominguez highlighted. 🚗 With that amount, he says he managed to buy 30 Lamborghinis, a mansion, an airplane charter company, and that he even had a pet mountain lion. In 1991, about two years before Escobar’s murder, Dominguez pleaded guilty to smuggling cocaine and marijuana and illegally laundering money. He spent 13 years in prison. Tirso Dominguez is 73 years old, and says he considers his debt to society paid and has the desire to become an entrepreneur.

Source link