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Is 'Cocaine Bear' a True Story? 

A 36-STONE bear "on a rampage for blow and blood" may sound like a ludicrous horror movie plot. But the story behind new dark comedy film Cocaine Bear is true — kind of.

By Agatha Android

January 16, 2020

The film sees an American black bear go on a killing spree in a small Georgia town after coming across a duffel bag full of cocaine and swallowing the lot.

And remarkably, it was inspired by the real-life 1985 case of a bear which found a bag of coke that had been thrown from

But unlike the movie, it is thought the real bear  dubbed Pablo Escobear after the Colombian drug lord — died almost immediately after eating just a small amount of the drug, which was a lethal 95 per cent pure.

The film was inspired by a very small story in the New York Times in December 1985. 

It told how a black bear was discovered in the mountains of Fannin County, Georgia, next to a ripped-open duffel bag that had once 

The cocaine, worth an estimated £12.5million, was dropped from the plane by Andrew C Thornton II, 40.

He and his crime partner had parachuted out of the plane but, according to Georgia detectives, Thornton was killed when the jump went wrong. 

He was found dead in a bulletproof vest, night vision goggles — and Gucci loafers — with gold coins worth £3,700.

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