Mexican Drug Lord Joined Forbes’ List of World’s Billionaires

Who ever said that crime doesn’t pay? It certainly did for this guy: Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, who made the rank in Forbes’ annual list of The World’s Billionaires.

Mexico’s most wanted man, "El Chapo", or Shorty, heads the Sinaloa cartel, one of the biggest suppliers of Cocaine to the U.S. In 1993 was arrested in Mexico on homicide and drug charges. Escaped from federal prison in 2001, reportedly through the laundry, and quickly regained control of his drug trafficking organization, which he still controls today. In 2008 Mexican and Colombian traffickers laundered between $18 billion and $39 billion in proceeds from wholesale shipments to the U.S. Shorty, an alleged tunnels expert, is believed to have directed anywhere from a third to half of that during the past 8 years. Apparently started out working with Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, "El Padrino", or the Godfather, head of the most powerful drug trafficking group in Mexico at that time. U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for his capture.

Needless to say, Mexican authorities are livid:

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora expressed outrage at the publication and described Forbes’ calculations on Guzman Loera’s fortune as mere "speculation."

"I will never accept that a criminal could be recognized as someone distinguished, even if it is by a magazine like Forbes," Medina Mora said to local media during a drug traffic summit Thursday in Vienna, Austria.

Forbes is "comparing the deplorable activity of a criminal wanted in Mexico and abroad with that of honest businessmen," he said.

Link | CNN Article (Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)