Do you think narcos may actually be on the 10 richest?

[Smartvirus]

The world continues to evolve still and with this evolution comes a more crooked ways of generating money and also hiding it to elude the eyes of authorities and investigations. Little wonder why the Narcos of the old in the likes of Pablo Escobar buried quite a huge aspect of his earnings as in cash to reduce the attention and keep people away from asking questions.
Narcotics and Narcos are still in business and the patronage is forever high still, so do the money but, it can be publicly displayed and as such, there is a possibility of having parts of there funds and assets hidden under legitimate businesses and business figures. So, there is a possibility that, should they not list in the list of the world richest persons, there wealth could help elevate another.

[Snappycoco]

They could. We all know how big the drug market is which is happening in the black market and these distributors specially those at the top could have billions of dollars. If they can pay politicians, generals and heads of departments then its safe to say that they have monies to spend for that. They don't even pay for taxes by that and that makes them more wealthier.

[LUCKMCFLY]

25B in 1989 would make Pablo one of the richest persons on earth. By comparison, today's most notorious narcos are not making the cut. It seems like "the business" has become more complicated than before.

If it is true then I am really glad about that. But unfortunately, what I am hearing is, corrupted politicians and businessmen are more richer than what we do see in mainstream media. We need to account the level of smartness has been developed across all human beings and level of possible corruption happens with authorities who are supposed to be making those business complicated.

For some reasons, the real earnings of drug dealers are not coming to limelight. One probable reason must be "setting up wrong example to new generations". Hence, I am not reedy to agree that notorious people are not equally growing up in this modern era by considering the rate of illegal activities at every part of this world.

I think Escobar's fortune was much higher, but due to his decline in his last year of life, the problem with the Colombian government that triggered many of the Medellin Cartel leaving him alone and did not support him financially because he was killing to almost all his friends, this caused him to have stolen from his own friends, so when he died the lands, goods and everything he had had to be distributed so that they would let his family live, in fact now one of the bosses and The biggest drug traffickers in history is not OTONIEL, (who recently caught) for me they are in Venezuela, since the same government is the punisher for drug trafficking, and the government entities that have many front men have so much money, and Venezuela is exploited every minute in gold and precious stones, so it is incalculable for me now to say who is the most millionaire of all.

[Rufsilf]

Escobar has really struck the proverbial gold mine in the last 70's to early 80's and there's not much competition that time and that's why he has a total monopoly of drugs around the globe. But it has change in the late 90's to up to know. But still they are raking in billions.

That thing with this mafia or cartel is that we really don't know how much value they really have, and it could rivaled the worlds riches. But it's just the question of morality whether we need to include them on the list or not.

Pablo Escobar's eyes was set to only one competitor until he died and it was the Cali Cartel owned by Rodriguez brothers. This cartel was his only opponent and rival Pablo's Medellin Cartel in Colombia, Central America and South America.
There's also this Japanese Mafia, an organized gang who owns many legal and illegal businesses but yes cartels and mafiasc can't be in the worlds richest list due to morality and undeclared assets that's no one can fathom and estimate their assets.