The former home of famed Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes has a new owner. On Sunday, the once luxurious property in Mexico City’s posh Jardines de Pedregal neighborhood was sold at auction for 49.71 million pesos, a little over US $2 million.

The home was one of hundreds of offerings put on the auction block by Indep, a branch of government formed to claim the proceeds of assets seized during the committing of crimes. The money raised in this auction will be used to help fight the coronavirus, officials said. 

The boxy, cement home would have been state-of-the art when it was built. The 3,500-square-meter mansion includes an indoor swimming pool and spa, an elaborate children’s playhouse, large gardens, a bar and a wine cellar. 

There was only one bidder for the house.

The auction, held at the Los Pinos cultural complex, also offered 77 cars, five airplanes, five homes and 107 lots of jewelry, among other seized goods. In total, more than 130 million pesos, around US $5.3 million, was collected.

The home, whose style and fixtures appear dated, belonged to Carrillo, known as “The Lord of the Skies,” until his death in 1997 from a botched series of plastic surgery procedures. 

Carrillo became involved in the drug trade while still a teenager, working in poppy and marijuana cultivation in the mountains of Chihuahua before rising through the ranks to become head of the Juárez Cartel. 

He is estimated to have amassed a fortune of around US $25 billion by transporting drugs, mostly cocaine, from Colombia and Mexico to the United States, often using his fleet of jets, which is how he earned his nickname. 

After his death, Mexican police seized dozens of Carrillo’s properties across the country. The government also seized an Arabian-style home called “The House of 1,001 Nights” from Carrillo in 1993. The over-the-top mansion still stands, abandoned and covered in graffiti, in Hermosillo, Sonora.

Source: Infobae (sp)