Sebastian Marroquin - who changed his name after his father's death, was a teenager when Escobar was gunned down

Since his notorious father was gunned down in 1993, Sebastian Marroquin has lived a life of contradictions.

The son of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar has in turns distanced himself from the sins of his elders - fleeing to Mozambique and subsequently living in exile in Argentina under his current name - and also confronted the terror he unleashed head-on.

The family has even tried - unsuccessfully - to register Escobar's name as a brand.

Now, with interest in Escobar reaching new heights with Netflix series Narcos attracting millions of viewers across the planet, Marroquin has just released his second book about the cartel kingpin.

Marroquin, who has previously returned to Colombia to meet the victims of Escobar's reign of terror, lived a life of opulence through his childhood, even as his father was on the run from authorities and rival cartels.

Escobar, who died at the age of 44, has been linked to around 7,000 deaths, having ruthlessly killed rivals, law enforcers and hundreds of civilians caught in the crossfire of his bloody drug wars.

As a child, Escobar and his family lived in opulence, with the drug kingpin estimated to be the seventh richest man in the world in 1987

Now working as an architect and raising a family of his own, Marroquin, 39, said it came at too heavy a price.

He told NPR: 'I feel I have a moral responsibility to go before society, recognize my father's crimes and to apologize to the victims of these crimes.'

Marroquin sought out Jorge Lara, son of Colombian justice minister Rodrigo Lara.

Moral responsibility: Marroquin said he feels it is his duty to recognise his father's crimes

Jorge watched on in horror as his father's corpse was taken from the car in which he had been assassinated at Escobar's command in 1984.

The two have struck up an unlikely friendship, which Jorge stating: 'People tell me sometimes: "How can you talk to that guy?"

'But he's traveling around, talking about it. He's not hiding. So, he's a very brave guy. But he's got a very difficult life.'

Escobar was one of the world's most notorious criminals, and has been linked to 7,000 killings

Marroquin was under no illusions as a child about where the money came from.

As head of the Medellin cartel, Escobar was listed as the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine in 1987, which estimated his personal wealth at around $3 billion.

In an interview with The Mirror, Marroquin said: 'When I was seven or eight years old, we were in Panama and my dad said to me "son, I am a professional criminal".

'Ever since I was young, my dad always told me clearly about what he was involved in, but of course at the age of seven, you don’t realise the magnitude of what these words mean.

'[Pablo] warned me about drugs from an early age.'

The high life: Escobar's son Sebastian recalls his youth as a time when there were 'no limits' as his father built up his drug empire

At the age of nine, he was taken to one of Escobar's cocaine factories.

Yet despite drawing his income from the insatiable demand for the drug, Escobar the father was adamant that his son should not become a user.

'He wanted me to be very clear of the dangers of drugs, impressing onto me that he who doesn't try them is the brave one... and yet paradoxically, he was the most important drug dealers of the last century,' he said.

It was a life with no limits as Escobar junior grew up.

Marroquin recalls spending much of his childhood on the run, and being moved between houses wearing a blindfold

He recalled: 'We had houses, apartments, planes, cars, motorbikes, 4x4s, jetskis... The huge "finca" where my dad built a zoo and an airport, artificial lakes, we had more than 600 employees, 60 vehicles, 10 houses... there were no limits.'

Yet as Escobar's notoriety grew, so did the ferocity with which was searched, and his family bore the brunt, spending years moving from home-to-home trying to avoid his enemies.

Such was the cold pragmatism with which he approached his situation, Marroquin revealed, he was rarely aware of where he was.

Escobar was killed by Colombian special forces after being discovered hiding in a house in Medellin on December 2, 1993

'I didn’t know where exactly (we were) because they always moved us with blindfolds over our eyes,' he said.

'My dad preferred it this way just in case the police captured us and tortured us, we couldn’t tell them where we were staying because we didn’t know.'

Surrounded by police on one occasion, their perilous situation was all too clear for the impressionable youngster.

The entrance to Escobar's former home is a Colombian landmark

Marroquin said: 'All we had left was millions of dollars in cash but we were dying of hunger... we couldn’t leave the house even though we could have bought an entire supermarket.'

Marroquin has written two books about his notorious father

It was this that hammered home the reality of the life his father had chosen.

'It was during these moments that I realised what’s the point of drug money if you don’t have the freedom to leave the house?' he said.

Escobar's son said he credits being alive today with his decision not to follow his father into the drug business.

Yet from his own experience, the ruthless drug lord was not all bad, Marroquin believes.

'I think my dad had just as much good as bad in him,' he said.

'He was a very complex, contradictory person... his story kept changing with time. He was difficult to understand.