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#6 Carlos Lehder – $2.7 billion
A founding member of the infamous Columbian Medellin Cartel (see our #1), Carlos Lehder is currently doing time in a minimum security prison in Florida after being sentenced to life without parole in the late 1980s for drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder. In 1992 this sentence was commuted to 55 years after he gave evidence against the one-time dicator of Panama, Manuel Noriega. No stranger to prison, Lehder started out his criminal existence stealing cars and dealing in marijuana. After a stint in jail for car theft, he decided trading in cocaine was a better bet, particularly if he could smuggle it into the US by plane. At the height of his criminal success he operated off Norman’s Cay, an island in the Bahamas, doing just this.
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