Pablo Escobar's 'drug submarine' found by CIA divers in hunt for cocaine kingpin's £50bn fortune

One of the submarines used by Pablo Escobar to smuggle cocaine has reportedly been found off the coast of Colombia by former CIA agents.

The Colombian drug lord used submarines, which would carry around 2,000kg of cocaine, to transport drugs from his home country to Puerto Rico, before being transported by speedboats to Miami, from where they were then distributed across the US mainland.

At the peak of his powers, the boss of the Medellin cartel reportedly earned an eye-watering £320m a week in the 1980s and supplied over 80% of all the cocaine consumed across the US.

The location of one of the submarines has now reportedly been identified after two former CIA agents, Doug Laux and Ben Smith, were taken to the site by one of Escobar's former aides as part of the Discovery TV show "Finding Escobar's Millions".

The duo spoke to men and women who used to load the submarines with cocaine and after they were taken to one of the sites where submarines would surface, they sent divers to inspect the location in search for clues.

Escobar, whose life is depicted in the popular Netflix show Narcos, was killed in 1993 while trying to avoid arrest. Investigators believe the submarine could contain clues about the location of his hidden fortune estimated at around £50bn.

"My job in the agency was finding people - finding bad guys," Laux was quoted as saying by The Sun.

"So, you have kind of that same scenario here, if it's anything that somebody wants to keep a secret, and they keep in the dark, that's kind of where Ben and I thrive at getting in there and shining some light on it."

In a video posted on YouTube, the divers are taken by boat to the site, believed to have been uncovered only recently after a storm shifted the sand of the seabed, before beginning to explore underwater.

However, while they found a large box and lots of metal, they are yet to unearth a major clue indicating where Escobar stashed his fortune, which has become the stuff of legend since he surrendered to Colombian authorities in 1991.

The drug kingpin, who in 1989 was listed as the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes Magazine, reportedly hid a large chunk of his fortune at secret locations, which have never been identified.

In 2009, $8m (£5m) was discovered at a hidden complex built in the jungle, which had housed cocaine factories. Meanwhile, Christian de Berdouare, a restaurant owner who bought Escobar's mansion in Miami for $10m four years ago, believes some of the fortune could be stashed away inside the property.