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Whoever said that crime doesn’t pay? These 20 gangsters managed to amass
colossal fortunes through drug trafficking and various other crimes.
However, in most cases, it wasn’t enough to save their skins.
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Dawood Ibrahim: fortune estimated to be 10 times
greater than Osama bin Laden’s
Currently wanted by Interpol, this notorious Indian criminal may well be
laying low in a luxury bunker in Karachi, Pakistan according to media
sources. He controls 75% of the world’s heroin trafficking, but has
various other business interests including diamonds, gold and real
estate. |
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Al Capone: $100 million
This notorious American gangster made his fortune in bootleg alcohol and
contraband goods during the prohibition era of the 1920s. Arrested in
1932, Capone served 11 years in Alcatraz. |
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Frank Lucas: $52 million
From the end of the ‘60s until the middle of the ‘70s, this New York
gangster earned up to $1 million per day dealing heroin. During the
Vietnam War, Lucas colluded with contacts in the US army to smuggle
drugs inside the coffins of soldiers killed in combat. |
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Bernard Madoff: $820 million
This American swindler is notorious for cheating thousands of investors
through a Ponzi scheme. He’ll have plenty of time to reflect on the
consequences of his actions, however. In 2009, he was sentenced to 150
years in prison for extorting $60 billion from his clients. |
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Viktor Bout: around $6 billion
Nicknamed “The Merchant of Death”, the world’s biggest arms dealer is
currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the USA. This ex-officer
in the Soviet Air Forces sold arms in all four corners of the world
after the fall of the Berlin wall.
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Leona Helmsley: $2 billion
Leona Helmsley, a.k.a. “The Queen of Mean”, built a property empire with
her husband, the real-estate magnate Harry Helmsley. She was sentenced
to 18 months in prison for tax evasion in 1992.
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