Richest Drug lords in history (Top 5).

1. Pablo Escobar: $30 Billion 

The notorious narcoterrorist and drug lord from Colombia was born Pablo Emilion Escobar Gaviria. He was the leader of a cartel known to have smuggled 80% of the cocaine in the United States. The King of Cocaine earned his title for having an annual personal income of more than $21.9 billion per year. He was from Rionegro and grew up in Medellín. He was a university student in Medellín for a time, but left before earning a degree to sell fake lottery tickets, contraband cigarettes, and to steal motor vehicles. He developed a skill for infiltrating the United States drug market and specialized in cocaine smuggling. He is credited with establishing the first successful smuggling routes leading into the U.S. His Medellín Cartel was known for murders and massacres of politicians and law enforcement officials. Though he became popular for building football fields and house in Columbia, the city also earned the title of the world’s murder capital. Colombian National Police killed Escobar when he was just 44 years old.

2. Amado Carrillo Fuentes: $25 Billion

He was known as “The Lord of the Skies” because he transported drugs using his huge fleet of jets. He also viciously took over the Juárez Cartel when he assassinated his boss. Once Rafael Aguilar Guajardo was dead, it opened the way for Fuentes to become the cartel head. Fuentes came from a family of 11 children, and once he learned the drug trafficking trade, he added his brothers, and his son, as his employees. The empire he built was a multi-billion-dollar drug trafficking machine. In Mexico and the United states, authorities were determined to capture him. In an effort to evade them, Fuentes tried to have his appearance changed with plastic surgery. The operation wasn’t successful, and he died from surgical complications from either a respirator which malfunctioned or medication. He’d had his bodyguards with him in the operating room to watch over the July surgery. In November, the two surgeons who operated on him were found dead. Their bodies had apparently been tortured, and then encased in steel drums filled with concrete. A fictionalized version of his life, starring Rafael Amaya, called El Señor de los Cielos (The Lord of the Skies) was aired on Telemundo for several years.

3. Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar: $6.7 Billion

Dawood Ibrahim is from Mumbai, india. He founded D-Company, a crime syndicate organized in India. In 2003, he earned the rank of global terrorist. In 2011, he earned the spot of third on World’s Ten Most-Wanted Criminals. He’s been charged with terrorism, drug trafficking, extortion, murder, and targeted killing. He currently lives in Karachi, Pakistan. It is believed that he controls the money transferring system called hawala. It’s an informal value transfer method which depends on honorable cash movement within a network of money brokers. The United Stated Department of the Treasury has attempted to monitor his smuggling routes and narcotics shipments. His organization operates in India, South Asia, Africa, the UK, Western Europe and the Middle East, and shares similar networks with al-Qaeda. Many concerted efforts have taken place to have Ibrahim brought to justice in India, but he maintains Pakistani passports and residents and reports indicate that he may have shifted operations to the Pakistani-Afghanistan border. His D-Company has also been linked to the Bollywood industry, as numerous studios and films were financed, and threatened and extorted by it. The film Shootout at Wadala is about Ibrahim’s D-Company and its growing influence.

4.Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez and His Brothers: $6 Billion

Jorge, Juan David, and Fabio Ochoa were primary members of the dangerous Medellín Cartel during the later years of the 1980s. The brothers were notorious for their cooperation in manufacturing, distributing, and marketing cocaine. The Ochoa brothers originally were part of a cattle- breeding family that also did business with family restaurants. Their movement into the narcotics business began during the 1970s, and their cartel was founded by Jorge. The Columbian family was involved in numerous arrests, indictments, and extradition attempts in various countries, but by 1984 their power was so grounded that the cartel made a public announcement that each Columbian extradition would result in ten murdered Columbian judges. Jorge was listed in Forbes as one of the top twenty richest men in the world. His personal estimated worth in 1987 was close to $3 billion.

5. Khun Sa: $5 Billion

Khun Sa is the Burmese AKA for the Chinese Zhang Qifu. He was born in Burma and spent his early years training with the Burmese Army and the Kuomintang. He eventually fought to establish his own territory, which allowed him to conduct extensive opium smuggling in the Golden Triangle. From 1976 and for twenty years following, he dominated the opium traffic. He used the support of both Burmese and Thai governments to accomplish his goals. His massive network earned him the title “Opium King”. His work as a drug warlord extended internationally. When American Drug Enforcement Agency broke the links he had established with his international brokers, he closed down operations and moved to Yangon to live with his mistresses in great wealth.