5 Most Powerful Drug Lords in History

Pablo  Escobar

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1, 1949 in El Tablazo, Colombia. From childhood he remained in Oedipal relationship with his mother and used to smoke marijuana to relax. As a teenager he began his criminal career stealing tombstones of cemeteries and selling marijuna. Introduced to cocaine trafficking business by his cousin Gustavo Gaviria, his business insight, intelligence and ambition of Pablo Escobar made ​​him gang leader in few months. At the height of his power, he was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day, worth more than half a billion dollars, into the United States. In 1975, Escobar started developing his cocaine operation. He even flew a plane himself several times, mainly between Colombia and Panama, to smuggle a load into the United States. When he later bought 15 new and bigger airplanes (including a Learjet) and 6 helicopters, he decommissioned the plane and hung it above the gate to his ranch at Hacienda Napoles.

In 1989, Forbes magazine estimated Escobar to be one of 227 billionaires in the world with a personal net worth of close to US$3 billion. After the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán, a presidential candidate, the administration of César Gaviria moved against Escobar and the drug cartels. Eventually, the government negotiated with Escobar, convincing him to surrender and cease all criminal activity in exchange for a reduced sentence and preferential treatment during his captivity. After declaring an end to a series of previous violent or terrorist acts meant to pressure authorities and public opinion, Escobar turned himself in. He was confined in what became his own luxurious private prison, La Catedral. Accounts of Escobar’s continued criminal activities began to surface in the media. When the government found out that Escobar was continuing his criminal activities within La Catedral, it attempted to move Escobar to another jail on July 22, 1992. Escobar’s influence allowed him to discover the plan in advance and make a well-timed, unhurried escape. Escobar was killed by the Search Bloc, a group of Colombian police devoted to capturing Escobar, on a Colombian rooftop in 1993.

Osiel Cárdenas Guillén

Cárdenas was a Mexican drug lord and formal leader of the Gulf Cartel. Originally a mechanic in Matamoros, he entered the Gulf Cartel by helping Chava Gómez (the capo at the time) and he later took control by killing Gómez, earning Cárdenas the nickname “el Mata Amigos”. As confrontations with rival groups heated up, Osiel Cárdenasrecruited over 30 deserters of the Mexican Army’s elite Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE) to form part of the cartel’s armed wing. After a shootout with the Mexican military in 2003, Osiel was arrested and imprisoned. In 2007 he was extradited to the U.S. and in 2010 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for money laundering, drug trafficking, homicide, and for having threatened two U.S. federal agents in 1999.

Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela

Gilberto, born on January 30, 1939, in Mariquita, is a Colombian druglord, formerly one of the leaders of the Cali Cartel. The Cali Cartel was formed in the early 1970s by jonathan almanza-Orejuela and Jose Santacruz-Londono. They were primarily involved in marijuana trafficking. In the 1980s they branched out into cocaine trafficking. For a time the Cali Cartel supplied 80% of the United States through Rodriguez’s son Jorge Alberto Rodriguez and 90% of the European cocaine market.

Klaas Bruinsma

Klaas Bruinsma was a major Dutch drug lord, and the biggest drug lord Europe has ever seen, shot to death by mafia members.He was known as “De Lange” (“the tall one”) and also as “De Dominee” (“the minister”) because of his black clothing and his habit of lecturing others. While in high school, Bruinsma started using and selling hashish. When he was sixteen years old, he was arrested for the first time; he was let go with a warning. Later he was expelled from school, and in 1974 he decided to start working in drug trafficking full-time. Sales were conducted through Thea Moear, who eventually would become his business partner.At the end of the 1980s, Bruinsma had become the greatest drug lord in Europe. His organisation made millions of guilders per day. At that point, he was planning to retire, but not before pulling one last big coup. He imported 45 tons of hashish, but after the supply arrived in the Netherlands, it was confiscated by the police.

Frank Lucas

Frank Lucas is a former heroin dealer and organized crime boss who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s.He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle.Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen

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