The brutally violent and ruthless lives of real-life drug lords are much dirtier than Hollywood could ever depict. Below are some of the most legendary criminals.
Here is a list of top 15 most richest drug dealers of all time.
| # | Name: | Net Worth: |
| 15. | Paul Lir Alexander | – Net Worth $170 Million |
| 14. | Zhenli Ye Gon | – Net Worth $300 Million |
| 13. | Joseph P. Kennedy | – Net Worth $400 Million |
| 12. | Rafael Caro Quintero | – Net Worth $650 Million |
| 11. | Joaquín Loera “El Chapo” Guzman | – Net Worth $1 Billion |
| 10. | Al Capone | – Net Worth $1.3 Billion |
| 9. | Griselda Blanco | – Net Worth $2 Billion |
| 8. | Carlos Lehder | – Net Worth $2.7 Billion |
| 7. | The Orejuela Brothers | – Net Worth $3 Billion |
| 6. | Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha | – Net Worth $5 Billion |
| 5. | Khun Sa | – Net Worth $5 Billion |
| 4. | The Ochoa Brothers | – Net Worth $6 Billion |
| 3. | Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar | – Net Worth $6.7 Billion |
| 2. | Amado Carrillo Fuentes | – Net Worth $25 Billion |
| 1. | Pablo Escobar | – Net Worth $30 Billion |
(See also Top 30 Richest Gangsters in Ireland)
(See also Top 20 Notorious Female Gangsters)
(See also Top 10 Richest Gangsters Of All Time)
(See also Top 13 Notorious Mexican Drug Lords)
(See also Top 25 Extremely Notorious Gangsters)
(See also Top 70 Famous Irish American Gangsters)
(See also 10 Most Powerful Female Crime Lords Ever)
(See also Top 10 Most Notorious Female Drug Kingpins)
15. Paul Lir Alexander – Net Worth $170 Million
 |
| (Paul Lir Alexander) |
Paul Lir Alexander (nicknamed El Parito Loco) was born in Laguna, Santa Catarina, Brazil, on July 27, 1956. He is a former Brazilian drug smuggler noted for exporting cocaine to the United States (US) while simultaneously assisting the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with its investigations of other smugglers. Alexander has been known as "O barão da cocaina" in Brazil (translated into English as "The Baron of Cocaine").
As of November 19, 2011, Alexander was still at large, yet maintaining a Facebook page. Much speculation exists as to where Alexander went after he was released from prison.
14. Zhenli Ye Gon – Net Worth $300 Million
 |
| (Zhenli Ye Gon) |
Zhenli Ye Gon (born January 31, 1963 in Shanghai, China) is a Chinese-Mexican businessman currently under suspicion of trafficking pseudoephedrine or ephedrine precursor chemicals into Mexico from Asia. He is the owner and legal representative of Unimed Pharm Chem México, as well as various other Mexican corporations. From 2002-2004, Unimed had been legally authorized by the Mexican government to import thousands of metric tons of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine products into Mexico, as a part of its vast importation business.
13. Joseph P. Kennedy – Net Worth $400 Million
 |
| (Joseph P. Kennedy) |
Joseph P. Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) is the patriarch of one of America’s most powerful and prestigious families. One of his sons became President, another District Attorney and presidential candidate and another a Senator. At his peak Kennedy was one of the richest men in America but as the saying goes behind every great fortune, there is a great crime. Kennedy was already in the liquor business before prohibition but according to several books and gangsters, became a bootlegger with ties to the New York and Chicago underworlds after liquor was made illegal. It has been reported that Kennedy contacted mobster Frank Costello, who was known to brag that he was a bootlegger with Kennedy, to use another mobster, Chicago’s Sam Giancana to help his son John get elected through his ties to Chicago and the unions.
12. Rafael Caro Quintero – Net Worth $650 Million
 |
| (Rafael Caro Quintero) |
Rafael Caro Quintero (born October 3, 1952 (age 62) La Noria, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico) is a Mexican drug trafficker who founded the now-disintegrated Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and other drug traffickers in the 1970s. He is the brother of fellow drug trafficker Miguel Caro Quintero, the founder and former leader of the extinct Sonora Cartel who remains incarcerated.
11. Joaquín Loera “El Chapo” Guzman – Net Worth $1 Billion
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| (Joaquín Loera “El Chapo” Guzman) |
Mexican drug lord Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera (born 25 December 1954 (age 60) or 4 April 1957 (age 57) La Tuna, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico) led the Sinaloa Cartel, an organized crime syndicate and drug trafficking group that used to operate in Mexico. The cartel was also known then as the Guzman-Loera Organization, named after its leader. He has been one of the most powerful men of the world since 2009, with a net worth of about $1 billion. Forbes Magazine recently labelled him as “the most powerful drug trafficker in the world.”
10. Al Capone – Net Worth $1.3 Billion
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| (Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone) |
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone (born January 17, 1899 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.; died January 25, 1947 (aged 48) Palm Island, Florida, U.S.), the American gangster who ran the Chicago Mafia, made most of his money during prohibition. By 1929, Capone's income from the various aspects of his business included: $60 million from illegal alcohol, $25 million from gambling establishments, $10 million from vice and another $10 million from various other rackets. It is claimed that Capone was employing over 600 gangsters to protect his business from rival gangs. Based on inflation, his empire would be worth about $1.3 billion today.
9. Griselda Blanco – Net Worth $2 Billion
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| (Griselda Blanco) |
Griselda Blanco (born February 15, 1943 Cartagena, Colombia; died September 3, 2012 (aged 69) Medellín, Colombia), known as La Madrina, the Black Widow, the Cocaine Godmother and the Queen of Narco-Trafficking, was a drug lord of the Medellín Cartel and a pioneer in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade. Ruthless, brutal and believed to be psychotic, Blanco loved wearing couture fashions, smoking crack, and ordering creative, cold-blooded assassinations. Responsible for an estimated 200 murders, including the shooting of a two-year-old, Blanco was imprisoned for 20 years. She continued her cocaine business while behind bars and was released from prison in 2004. She was shot dead by riders on a motorcycle – an assassination method she had been credited with inventing.
8. Carlos Lehder – Net Worth $2.7 Billion
 |
| (Carlos Lehder) |
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas or simply Carlos Lehder (born September 7, 1949 (age 65) Armenia, Colombia). The son of a Colombian mother and German father, Medellin Cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder was a self-proclaimed Nazi who stamped kilos of cocaine with swastikas. Lehder commandeered a small island in the Bahamas as a way station between Colombia and the United States. From it, he commanded a veritable drug-smuggling air force base, complete with armed troops, multiple hangars, and a runway that could accommodate passenger jets. He revolutionized drug smuggling with the idea of using small, private planes for smuggling. Before him, human “mules” would transport as much as they could in suitcases aboard passenger flights.
In the early ’80s, the Colombian government began extraditing known drug lords to the US for trial, and Lehder was near the top of that list. He was sentenced in 1987 to life plus 135 years, but after offering testimony in 1992 against notorious Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega his sentence was reduced to 55 years.
7. The Orejuela Brothers – Net Worth $3 Billion
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| (Gilberto José Rodríguez Orejuela and Miguel Angel Rodríguez Orejuela (The Orejuela Brothers)) |
Gilberto José Rodríguez Orejuela (born January 30, 1939 (age 76) Mariquita, Tolima, Colombia) is a Colombian druglord, formerly one of the leaders of the Cali Cartel, based in the city of Cali.
Miguel Angel Rodríguez Orejuela (born August 15, 1943 (age 71) Mariquita, Tolima, Colombia) is a Colombian druglord, formerly one of the leaders of the Cali Cartel, based in the city of Cali. He is the younger brother of Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela.
Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela face an indictment that alleges four conspiracies, to import and distribute cocaine, launder money and obstruct justice through bribery and murder from 1990 through July 2002.
6. Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha – Net Worth $5 Billion
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| (Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha) |
José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha (born May 1947 Pacho, Colombia; died December 15, 1989 (aged 42) Tolu, Colombia), also known by the nickname El Mexicano, was a Colombian drug lord who was one of the leaders of the notorious Medellín Cartel along with the Ochoa brothers and Pablo Escobar. At the height of his criminal career Rodríguez was acknowledged as one of the world's most successful drug dealers. In 1988, Forbes Magazine included him in their annual list of the world's billionaires.
5. Khun Sa – Net Worth $5 Billion
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| (Khun Sa) |
Khun Sa, also known as Chang Chi-fu (born 17 February 1934 Loi Maw, Mongyai, British Burma; died 26 October 2007 (aged 73) Yangon, Myanmar), was a Burmese warlord. He was also dubbed the "Opium King" due to his opium trading in the so-called Golden Triangle. He was also the leader of the Shan United Army and the Mong Tai Army.
For two decades beginning in 1974, 80 percent of the heroin hitting the New York streets came from the so-called “Golden Triangle” regions of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand. Khun Sa was the reason, as he had been able to unify a larger portion of the region than any previous figure with his drug-funded private army. Eventually, he built the largest heroin empire the world had ever seen.
As “King of the Golden Triangle,” Sa enjoyed such power that he even openly mocked the hypocrisy of the American drug war. In 1977, he challenged the American government to buy his entire opium crop, destroy it, and just let him “have the money for his people.” They refused. Khun Sa surrendered to Myanmar authorities in 1996, but little is known about what became of him after that. He turned over all of his assets to the government, and reportedly died in 2007 of unknown causes.
4. The Ochoa Brothers – Net Worth $6 Billion
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| (The Ochoa brothers (Jorge, Juan David, and Fabio)) |
The Ochoa brothers (Jorge, Juan David, and Fabio) were key to the Medellin organization from the very beginning despite the fact that they came from an educated, upper-class background. Amassing lavish fortunes comparable to those of their associates in the ’80s with an estimated personal fortune of $6 billion (Jorge beat Jose Gacha to the Forbes list by a year), trouble began with a 1984 Washington Post story detailing the activities of undercover DEA agent Barry Seal inside their organization. Four cartel members were indicted by a federal grand jury later that very month, based on that evidence.
All three brothers had surrendered to authorities by 1991, and all three were out by 1996. Very little has been heard of them since, with the exception of Fabio: The youngest Ochoa brother was again arrested for drug smuggling in 1999 and was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2003. He died in prison of a heart attack on July 25, 2013.
3. Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar – Net Worth $6.7 Billion
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| (Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar) |
Reportedly worth over $6 billion, Indian crime lord Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar (born 27 December 1955 (age 59) Ratnagiri district, Maharastra, India) is one ruthless individual: He is tied to a 1993 political bombing in Mumbai that killed over 250 people, has close ties to Osama Bin Laden, and runs an influential organization described as “the Goldman Sachs of organized crime.”
Known as “D-Company,” his organization houses a massive drug operation, and dabbles in pretty much everything from counterfeiting and arms running to extortion, terrorism, and even the film industry. It has financed several popular Indian films and is thought to derive a substantial amount of revenue from Bollywood.
Kaskar’s days of living like royalty may be behind him: He is currently India’s most wanted man and is thought to be in hiding in Pakistan. For their part, Pakistan denies he is in the country, but it seems like we may have heard that before.
2. Amado Carrillo Fuentes – Net Worth $25 Billion
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| (Amado Carrillo Fuentes) |
Born December 17, 1956 Navolato, Sinaloa, Mexico; died July 3, 1997 (aged 40) Mexico City, Mexico. As the top drug trafficker in Mexico, Carrillo was transporting four times more cocaine to the U.S. than any other trafficker in the world, building a fortune of over US$25 billion. He was called El Señor de los Cielos (“The Lord of the Skies”) for his pioneering use of over 22 private 727 jet airliners to transport Colombian cocaine to municipal airports, and dirt airstrips around Mexico, including Juárez. In the months before his death, The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration described Carrillo as the most powerful drug trafficker of his era, and many analysts claimed profits neared $25 billion, making him one of the world’s wealthiest men.
1. Pablo Escobar – Net Worth $30 Billion
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| (Pablo Escobar) |
Born December 1, 1949 Rionegro, Colombia; Died December 2, 1993 (aged 44) Medellín, Colombia. Other names: El Doctor, El Patrón, El Padrino, Don Pablo, El Señor, El Magico, El Sar de la Cocaina.
If one man could be said to represent the idea of a “drug kingpin,” that one man would be Pablo Escobar. While running the Medellín Cartel out of Colombia in the 70s and 80s, Escobar’s ruthless tactics ensured a steady flow of cocaine into America. Some sources estimate that 80% of the cocaine imported into this country came through Escobar’s enterprise, some 15 tons per day at its peak.
Escobar became one of the world’s richest men (with an estimated worth of nearly $30 billion) through eliminating rivals and fostering corruption within the Colombian government. Officials who didn’t bow to bribery often met violent ends. He assassinated candidates for office, judges, police officers, and reporters. He planted a bomb on an airplane to kill a candidate for president; the candidate was not on the plane, but 110 innocent people were. Ultimately, Escobar would be responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 people.
Escobar’s acts of domestic terrorism eventually turned public opinion against him, despite his attempts to court public favor with philanthropic activity. By the time he was gunned down while fleeing across rooftops from government soldiers, his reputation was as riddled with holes as his dead body.