Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, blamed for thousands of deaths in a drug war, has made it onto the Forbes Magazine list of the world's richest people with an estimated $1 billion fortune.
Guzman, who is just 5 feet tall, escaped from prison in 2001 to set off a wave of killings across Mexico in an attempt to dominate the country's highly lucrative drug trade into the United States.
Guzman, 51, who officials believe changes his cell phone every day to avoid being tracked, is often compared to the late Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar, whom Forbes has said amassed a fortune of $3 billion before he was killed by police in 1993.
The Mexican smuggler is "basically one of the biggest providers of cocaine to the United States," Kroll said. The magazine based its tally of his fortune on estimates from drug-trade analysts and U.S. government data.
Guzman's prison escape and ability to elude capture for eight years are an embarrassment to the Mexican government.
He has outwitted four major government drives to find him between 2002 and 2007. His escapades are the stuff of legend in the areas he controls and in popular "narcocorrido" songs that glorify drug traffickers.
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