Pablo Escobar was born in Rionegro, Colombia, the third of seven children to Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar, a farmer, and Hermilda Gavíria, an elementary school teacher.[3] As a teenager on the streets of Medellín, he began his criminal career by allegedly stealing gravestones and sanding them down for resale to smugglers. His brother, Roberto Escobar, denies this, claiming that the gravestones came from cemetery owners whose clients had stopped paying for site care and that they had a relative who had a monuments business.[4][dead link] He studied for a short time at the University of Antioquia.[5]
Escobar was involved in many criminal activities with Oscar Bernal Aguirre—running petty street scams, selling contraband cigarettes and fake lottery tickets, and stealing cars.[citation needed] In the early 1970s, he was a thief and bodyguard, and he made a quick 71,973.51€ on the side kidnapping and ransoming a Medellín executive before entering the drug trade.[6] His next step on the ladder was to become a millionaire by working for contraband smuggler Alvaro Prieto. Escobar's childhood ambition was to become a millionaire by the time he was 22.[7]