#with a small fraction of her net worth and SHE WOULD STILL BE A BILLIONAIRE.

[herefortheships]

Society would rather ignore homeless people exist than to allow space for any semblance of a sense of responsibility in the wealthy to help them and all those in need, or allow even a sense of guilt for choosing to do nothing.

[buzzygist]

Check Out The 9 One Time Drug Lords And Their Net Worth

Some of the wealthiest and most powerful people of all time are (or were) criminals in line with the much-quoted maxim “crime pays.” While drug smugglers and mobsters feature amongst the wealthiest criminals of all time, there are a multitude of fraudsters out there who have reaped undue rewards through a life of crime. We have drawn up this list of nine of the wealthiest criminal of all time. All are billionaires – very many more made millionaire status. In addition, several brothers have formed criminal teams and also share billions. The three Ochoa brothers, members of the infamous Medellin Cartel run by our number 1 Pablo Escobar, were at one stage together worth $6 billion; and the two Rodriquez Orejuala brothers were reputedly worth $3 billion as a result of their drug deals.

9. Al Capone –  $100 million 

One of the most notorious gangsters of all time, Alphonso Gabriel (aka Al) Capone was worth only a fraction of what many of the other wealthiest criminals on our list are (or were) worth when they were still alive. But then he also lived in a previous century, having been born in New York in 1899. Initially a small-time gangster who worked as a bouncer in places where criminal activities took place – including brothels – he later became bodyguard for crime syndicate leader, Johnny Torrio who made a small fortune selling illegal liquor. When Torrio died, Al Capone took over the syndicate, a position he held for seven years until he was 33. A modern-day Robin Hood (just like our No.1), he donated a substantial amount of money to the needy. Jailed for tax evasion in 1931, he died in 1947 of heart failure.

8. Griselda Blanco – $2 billion

Known as the Cocaine Godmother, the Queen of Narco-Trafficking, and the Black Widow, this wicked woman is regarded as a pioneer of the Miami-based cocaine drug trade. Born in Columbia in 1943, she was at one stage an important member of the Medellin Cartel run by the richest criminal ever (our no.1). After having a member of the Ochoa family murdered, she became an outcast, on the run from her own people. Her life of crime began when she became a pickpocket at 14, after running away from home. After the Ochoa murder, she managed to escape assassination threats for many years, and continued her life of crime, even when jailed. She was eventually killed in a drive-by shooting in 2012, at the age of 69 – a ripe-old age for a criminal.

7. Carlos Lehder – $2.7 billion

A founding member of the infamous Columbia Medellin Cartel (see our #1), Carlos Lehder is currently doing time in a minimum security prison in Florida after being sentenced to life without parole in the late 1980s for drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder. In 1992 this sentence was commuted to 55 years after he gave evidence against the one-time dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega. No stranger to prison, Lehder started out his criminal existence stealing cars and dealing in marijuana. After a stint in jail for car theft, he decided trading in cocaine was a better bet, Gparticularly if he could smuggle it into the US by plane. At the height of his criminal success he operated off Norman’s Cay, an island in the Bahamas, doing just this.

6. Khun Sa – $5 billion

Chinese drug lord Khun Sa made most of his money supplying opium he grew in Australia to drug dealers in New York. Also one-time leader of the Mong Thai and Shan United Armies, Sa was born in British Burma in 1934. Wanted in his later life by the US and Australian governments, Khun Sa didn’t only trade drugs, he also had a hugely lucrative weapons smuggling business. He is one of the lucky rich and infamous criminals who escaped capture and lived his life to the end, in Burma, with full knowledge of the Burmese government that would not extradite him. He was 73 when he died of natural causes.

5. Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha – $5 billion

A number of the wealthiest criminals of all time belonged, at some stage in their lives, to the infamous Medellin Cartel in Columbia, including Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. A past master of money laundering in the drug-dealing world, Gacha, who was born in Columbia in 1947, might have been one of the wealthiest criminals of all time, but he only lived to 42. With a minimal education behind him, he turned to crime at an early age, acting as a hired killer for whichever organization would pay him well. He joined the Medellin Cartel in its early days and was responsible for setting up one of the biggest jungle “laboratories” where cocaine was packaged. Later he was involved in Columbia’s emerald war. Eventually corned by the Columbian police in 1989, he killed himself with a hand-grenade.

4. Dawood Ibrahim – $6.7 billion

Indian, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar made his money with a portfolio of rotten activities ranging from match fixing to drug dealing and the finance of weapons to terrorist groups including al-Qaeda. Ultimately it was his link to al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden that identified his criminal activities to the authorities, and resulted in him being listed as the most wanted man in India. Still wanted by Interpol, he is thought to have been involved in a number of terror attacks since his disappearance. There have been reports that he is (or at least was) living in Pakistan. Pakistan denies this.

3. Leona Helmsley – $8 billion

Dubbed the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley (born Lena Mindy Rosenthal in 1920) lived a long “rich” life that was quite different to the other criminals on this list. Married four times (twice to one husband), she was left a fortune valued over $5 billion by husband Helmsley, a multi-millionaire real estate entrepreneur at the time of their marriage in 1970. Leona, by then already a millionaire in her own right, helped grow his business, but she also encouraged him to deal in a mean, underhand way. She paid for this, first when her real estate license was suspended, and then when she went to jail for tax evasion, serving only 19 months of the 16 year sentence. When Helmsley died of heart in 2007 at aged 87, she left $12 million in a trust fund for her Maltese poodle called Trouble. The amount was reduced to $2 million after objections; and the decision to do this was ranked third in Fortune magazine’s 101 Dumbest Moments in Business of 2007. The dog died in 2010 at aged 12, and the money leftover went to charity.

2. Amado Carrillo Fuentes – $25 billion

A hugely ambitious Mexican drug lord, Amado Carrillo Fuentes assassinated his boss Rafael Aguilar Guajardo in 1993 and took control of the powerful Juarez drug cartel. Wanted by the police in both Mexico and the US, in 1997 he had facial plastic surgery and abdominal liposuction in an endeavor to change his appearance, but died on the operating table. It is believed that the doctors who had operated on him were assassinated after being tortured. In spite of conspiracy theories that his death was faked, his fingerprints were matched to an old US immigration card he held. At least $10 billion of his assets were frozen by the authorities after he died.

1. Pablo Escobar – $30 billion

Regarded as the wealthiest criminal ever, in his time Pablo Escobar was the seventh richest man in the world. Born on December 1, 1949, and gunned down by police at the age of 44, the day after his birthday in 1993, he headed up the notorious Columbia cocaine cartel in Medellin. He is said to have begun his life of crime when he was a teenager, stealing gravestones and selling them. He began smuggling cocaine in the US when he was in his late twenties. Another modern-day Robin Hood, he gave a lot of money to the poor, and financed many housing projects.