How can Almost Empty Dropbox folder Take 1.3 GB Space? System: El-Capitan 10.11.5. Finder details of Dropbox folder



I deleted Dropbox from my PC. The directory size is 1.3GB although it contains only symlinks, by ls -laS

drwxr-xr-x+ 54 masi  staff  1836 May 29 14:28 ..
drwx------@ 23 masi  staff   782 May 28 16:31 .
drwxr-xr-x   5 masi  staff   170 May 28 16:31 .dropbox.cache
lrwxr-xr-x   1 masi  staff    47 May 17 18:15 Animations -&gt; /Users/masi/Animations/
lrwxr-xr-x   1 masi  staff    41 May 17 17:42 Labs -&gt; /Users/masi/Labs/
-rw-r--r--@  1 masi  staff     0 May 28 16:17 Icon?
...


I would like to understand and find out what is taking so much space in the directory which should be almost empty. 

Answers to comments

MacBook-Air-3:Dropbox masi$ ls -laS .dropbox.cache/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  814 masi  staff  27676 May 29 11:27 2016-05-28
drwx------@  23 masi  staff    782 May 28 16:31 ..
drwxr-xr-x    5 masi  staff    170 May 28 16:31 .
drwxr-xr-x    2 masi  staff     68 May 12 00:24 placeholder_cache
drwxr-xr-x    2 masi  staff     68 May 12 00:24 prefetch_cache

MacBook-Air-3:Dropbox masi$ ls -laS .dropbox
-rw-r--r--@ 1 masi  staff  35 May 12 00:24 .dropbox


Web interface has more content, about 20 GB. 



How can Almost Empty Dropbox folder Take 1.3 GB Space?
In the end after taking 3 backups of the system, I deleted the Dropbox Directory because


Dropbox can backfire and delete files/directories in local system if symlinks are used to Dropbox
Dropbox messes up OS X Extended hierarchy and takes significant amount of spaces although Dropbox uninstalled; I do not understand the details here. 


I noticed surprising effects although I had deleted Dropbox application. Diskutility showed me 15 GB free space before the deletion of Dropbox Directory. I restarted my system many times to see if the case is really true. After removing Dropbox directory, I got 50 GB free space as I should. Dropbox is clearly messing up the filesystem more than many know. 
Replacement of Dropbox


VPN connection in router because software VPN unstable (at least NordVPN crashes all the time; TODO Tunnelblick) in OSX; software VPN in Ubuntu Linux 14.04 (not newer because systemd/upstart problem with runit) next to OSX installation
Goal to use Bittorent Sync with VPN [experimenting]. It experienced conflicts with Dropbox and my local ISP/governments because they block/obstruct torrent protocol. 
... [hope more comes here] ...