How Much Money Did Pablo Escobar Make Per Day

The many prison house escapes of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán are reminders that the drug trade is not only a colorful background setting for popular American TV shows and movies. It is, in fact, a violent, deadly business organisation populated past men (and even a few women) who kill not only indirectly, through the distribution of their toxic products, just also directly, through hired gunmen who intimidate and murder rivals, regime officials, and oft, innocent bystanders.

We take a brief expect at five of the most notorious drug traffickers of our time:

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán

Shorty Guzman Photo — Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán on the twenty-four hour period afterwards his arrest in February 2015.

Photo: Getty Images

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, the man who became known as "El Chapo" ("Shorty"), certainly looks unassuming: 5'six" tall, middle-aged, average looks. But his unremarkable advent is deceptive. Guzmán is the kingpin of the Sinaloa Cartel, the source of the largest percentage of drugs imported into the U.s. every twelvemonth: cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin, all delivered by the ton through elaborate land and air distribution channels.

Guzmán seemed fated for the drug trade. His uncle was one of the original Mexican drug smugglers, and immature Joaquín was soon involved in the family business concern. He rose to prominence in the cartel speedily, every bit internecine fighting claimed rivals both inside the cartel and without. In 2006, violating a pact between cartels, Guzmán ordered an assassination that spurred what has come to be referred to equally the Mexican Drug War. This conflict between cartels has resulted in over 60,000 deaths and 12,000 kidnappings. Along the way, Guzmán has become a billionaire and one of the most powerful men in the earth.

The police defenseless upwardly with Guzmán from 1993 to 2001 when he was arrested and imprisoned. Just he made himself comfortable in jail, through bribery and intimidation, until his eventual escape (which involved the bribing of 78 people and cost him over $2 million to engineer). Arrested again on Feb 22, 2015, it wasn't long before El Chapo made his second escape from a maximum-security prison house on July 11. How did he practice information technology? He slipped through a hole under the shower in his cell and escaped through a mile-long tunnel that led to a construction site on the exterior.

Following Guzmán's headline-grabbing escape, headline-grabbing Republican presidential candidate at the time Donald Trump didn't waste material any fourth dimension tweeting virtually information technology. "Mexico's biggest drug lord escapes from jail. Unbelievable corruption and USA is paying the price. I told you lot then," Trump tweeted, alluding to controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants that he made during his presidential campaign launch.

El Chapo allegedly responded to The Donald through what is believed to exist the drug lord'south official Twitter business relationship. The profanity-laced tweet read: "Keep f*****g around and I'm going to make you swallow your f*****g words..."

While Trump beefed up his security and said the FBI is investigating the threat, El Chapo was busy on the run and Mexico was offering a $3.8 million reward for information leading to his capture.

On Jan 8, 2016, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto announced via Twitter that government recaptured the drug lord.

In January 2017, the Mexican government extradited Guzmán to the United States to confront drug trafficking and other charges. Guzmán appeared in U.S. Federal Court and pleaded not guilty to over a dozen charges. In July 2019, El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, along with ordering him to pay $12.6 billion in restitution.

Pablo Escobar

If ane man could be said to represent the idea of a "drug kingpin," that one human being would exist Pablo Escobar. While running the Medellín Cartel out of Colombia in the 70s and 80s, Escobar's ruthless tactics ensured a steady menstruation of cocaine into America. Some sources judge that 80 percent of the cocaine imported into this country came through Escobar'due south enterprise, some fifteen tons per solar day at its peak.

Escobar became one of the world's richest men (with an estimated worth of nearly $10 billion) through eliminating rivals and fostering corruption within the Colombian government. Officials who didn't bow to bribery often met tearing ends. He assassinated candidates for part, judges, police officers, and reporters. He planted a flop 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 activeness. By the time he was gunned down in 1993 while fleeing across rooftops from government soldiers, his reputation was as riddled with holes equally his expressionless body. His fame, however, has outlived him.

[Sentinel The Rise and Fall of Pablo Escobar on A&E Crime Central.]

Griselda Blanco

Not all drug kingpins are men. I of the most ruthless drug "queenpins" of all-fourth dimension was Griselda Blanco, nicknamed "La Madrina," or "The Godmother." Blanco was one of the central figures in the Medellín Dare and has been credited with being a mentor to Escobar, who would somewhen become her enemy.

Blanco first fabricated her name by developing bras and girdles designed to hide smuggled cocaine. She left Colombia in the early 70s and settled in Queens, New York, where she ready a large-scale operation. In 1975, she was indicted when the government intercepted a huge cocaine shipment. Blanco fled back to Republic of colombia, but it wasn't long before she returned, this fourth dimension to Miami.

In the 80s, Blanco painted Miami white and carmine: white with cocaine and red with the blood of drug rivals. I favorite method included drive-past shootings via motorcycle. Miami experienced a moving ridge of Blanco-related crime, including a submachine-gun attack at a mall. Blanco instigated anywhere betwixt 40 and 250 murders, including a few personal ones (she shot 1 of her husbands at point-blank range over a drug bargain). Somewhen, Blanco was imprisoned, just that didn't terminate her; on the inside, she plotted to kidnap John F. Kennedy, Jr. in a program that was foiled only by an insider's betrayal.

Blanco revealed in her "godmother" status, going as far as naming her youngest son Michael Corleone after the character in The Godfather. Like a grapheme in a picture show, nonetheless, she would accept an ironic cease. She was gunned down in front of a butcher'south store past an assassinator on a motorcycle, murdered past the very same method she had so often used to dispatch her own enemies.

Osiel Cárdenas Guillén

Like sure mafiosos, it helps to accept a memorable nickname if you're going to exist a drug kingpin. Osiel Cárdenas Guillén has i of the grimmer ones: "El Mata Amigos," or "The Friend Killer." Cárdenas earned the sobriquet by murdering his friend Salvador Gómez, who was in line to assume control of the Gulf Cartel in 1996. Needless to say, the Gulf Cartel soon had a new top man.

The U.S. Border Security Handbook describes the Gulf Cartel as "particularly violent," and under Cárdenas's leadership, it expanded its accomplish. He infiltrated the formerly incorruptible Mexican Special Forces branch of the armed services and amassed a individual mercenary ground forces that protected his interests and enforced his will. This regular army eventually became known as Los Zetas ("The Zs"), a brutal group more than likely to behead an official than ransom him. With such an organization at his beck and call, Cárdenas' cartel became one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the globe.

Cárdenas seemed to be unstoppable until he threatened a pair of DEA agents sheltering an informant. The might of the U.S. government was provoked, and in 2003, Cárdenas was captured and extradited to the U.S., where he nevertheless resides in a Texas prison. Los Zetas have since broken off from the Gulf Dare, and their role in Mexico's drug war has only intensified since Cárdenas' arrest.

Frank Lucas

Although a large proportion of drug traffickers come from Key America, the United States has had its share of homegrown drug kingpins. There was "Freeway" Ricky Ross, one of the men most backside the crack epidemic of the mid-80s; "Nicky" Barnes, known every bit "Mr. Untouchable" (he wasn't); and Jemeker Thompson, the "Queen Pivot." Perchance more notorious than all of them is Frank Lucas, who during the early on 70s distributed his "Blue Magic" heroin throughout Harlem.

Originally from North Carolina, Lucas arrived in New York and shortly got involved with local gangster "Bumpy" Johnson. After Johnson died, Lucas saw an opportunity to move into the drug trade that had upwardly to that point been dominated by the Italian mafia. Using military contacts overseas, he established a distribution network directly from Southeast Asia. Poppies were grown and processed into heroin and flown in military planes back to the U.S. (Lucas himself has asserted that heroin was sometimes packed into the coffins of soldiers being flown back from Vietnam). The purity of the heroin, combined with the violent tactics of Lucas towards competitors and the corrupt New York City constabulary of the early 70s, ensured that Lucas was before long making millions of dollars a month.

Police corruption would pb to a probe, which would eventually pb to Lucas. He went to jail, but turned government informant, which lessened his judgement. He lost all of his money, but he gained his freedom. His story was later told by Hollywood in the motion-picture show American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington. Although the moving-picture show isn't very accurate, and some take accused it of making Lucas seem noble, it stands as evidence of America's fascination with its most well-known drug kingpin.

Lucas died in May 2019.

Watch Kingpin on History Vault, featuring episodes about El Chapo and Pablo Escobar