Forbes announced Most wanted Top 10 criminals of the year in April 2008.
Here is the Top 10 List :
- Osama Bin Laden ( Afghanistan )
Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, is the world’s biggest terrorist. He has been in
dicted in federal court in New York for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people. Bin Laden has also been charged for conspiring to kill Americans outside the U.S. He has claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. that killed 3,000 people, including both Americans and foreign nationals. The State Department has put a $25 million reward on his head. The Saudi-born Bin Laden is probably 51 years old.
2. Joaquin Guzman ( Mexico )
The most wanted man in Mexico, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, allegedly moves billions of dollars’ worth of drugs into United States each year. His Sinaloa drug cartel is one of the key players in a narcotics war that has killed more than 2,000 people this year across Mexico.
Since his escape from prison in 2001, Guzman has built the Sinaloa cartel into one of the most powerful — and most brutal — criminal organizations in Latin America, and he has become what Pablo Escobar was in the 1990s — one of the pre-eminent drug smugglers of his day.The Mexican government has deployed thousands of soldiers and federal police to fight Guzman — who goes by his nickname “El Chapo,” or Shorty — yet his drugs continue to flow and the death toll from his battles with rival gangs and the Mexican government continues to escalate.
3. Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov ( Russia )
Alimzhan Tursunovich Tokhtakhounov is a businessman, and former sportsman of Uzbek origin.
He is accused in relations with organized crime and bribing of figure skating judges in the 2002 Winter Olympics. His nickname is thought to be “Taiwanchik,” which refers to his distinctly Asian as opposed to Eastern European facial features.In early 90’s he left Russia and settled in Paris, France. There he was soon accused in committing illegal business deals and smuggling of hardware from Germany. He was also reported having relations with Russian mafia.
4.Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar ( Indian )
One of the bleddy indian-Dawood Ibrahim also known as Sheikh Dawood Hassan, birth name Sheikh Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, is the
head of the organized crime syndicate D-Company in Mumbai.Ibrahim is accused of heading a vast and sprawling illegal empire. His name has become a byword in political, business and law enforcement circles. After the Bombay Blasts in 1993, which Ibrahim organized and financed, he became India’s most wanted man. In 2003, the United States Government declared Dawood Ibrahim a “global terrorist” and pursued the matter before the United Nations in an attempt to freeze his assets around the world and crack down on his operations after significant diplomatic lobbying by the government of India.
5.Matteo Messina Denaro ( Italian )
Matteo Messina Denaro also known as Diabolik, is a Sicilian mafioso.He is considered to be one of the new leaders of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano on April 11, 2006. Matteo Messina Denaro became known nationally on April 12, 2001, when the magazine L’Espresso put him on the cover with the headline: Ecco il nuovo capo della mafia (“Here is the new boss of the Mafia“). He has been a fugitive since 1993. The 45-year-old boss understands the old rules of the mob. He allegedly took part in the Falcone killings in 1992, and Italian police believe that he will do whatever he feels is necessary in the future to increase his own power — and the very real power of the Mafia.
6.Felicien Kabuga ( Africa )
Félicien Kabuga (born 1935) is a Rwandan businessman, accused of bankrolling and participating in the Rwandan Genocide.Félicien Kabuga was born in 1935 in Muniga, in the commune of Mukarange, prefecture
of Byumba, Rwanda. Called the financier of the genocide , he was an extremely rich businessman who was closely allied to the family of President Habyarimana. He took part in the creation of the National Defence Fund’s Acting Committee («Comité Provisoire du Fonds de Défense Nationale – FDN») of which he became President, as well as becoming president of the RTLM’s Ruling Committee.
He was also the main financial contributor to and silent partner of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development («Mouvement républicain national pour la démocratie et le développement – MRND», the presidential party), of the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic («CDR»), an extremist Hutu party inside the MRND (openly and fiercely opposed to the Tutsis) and of their militias. In this capacity, he wielded considerable influence on these organizations and exercised authority over their members, including the Interahamwe (an extremist Hutu militia)
7.Pedro Antonio Marin ( Colombia )
Pedro Antonio Marín Marín (May 13, 1930 – March 26, 2008) known by his “nom de guerre,”
Manuel Marulanda Vélez, and nicknamed by his comrades “Tirofijo” (Spanish: Sureshot), apparently because of a reputed ability to accurately aim firearms was the main leader of the FARC-EP (“Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo”). He was born in a coffee-growing region of west-central Colombia in the Quindío Department, to a peasant family politically aligned with the Liberal Party during conflicts in the 1940s and 1950s.Marulanda died of a heart attack on March 26, 2008. The news was first brought by Colombian magazine Revista Semana on May 24, 2008 that cited Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos saying Marulanda died.
8.Joseph Kony (Ugandian)
Joseph Kony (born ca. 1962) is the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla group that is
engaged in a violent campaign to establish a theocratic government in Uganda, which claims to be based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments. The LRA, which earned a terrifying reputation for its brutality against the people of northern Uganda, has abducted an estimated 20,000 children since its rebellion began in 1987.
On August 28, 2008, the United States Treasury Department placed Kony on its list of “specially designated global terrorists,” a designation that carries financial and other penalties. It is unknown whether or not Kony has any assets that are affected by this designation.
9.James “Whitey” Bulger ( American )
James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger, Jr. (born September 3, 1929) is a wanted fugitive and alleged leader of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish-American crime family operating in the region of Boston, Massachusetts. He is the brother of William Michael Bulger (who rose to become President of the Massachusetts State Senate and President of the University of Massachusetts). On August 19, 1999, Bulger became the 458th Ten Most Wanted fugitive listed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He is currently wanted for racketeering (under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and narcotics distribution. In October 2007, Interpol released a “red notice” for Bulger.
10.Omid Tahvili ( Persia )
Omid Tahvili, born on 31 October 1970, in Tehran, Iran,is the kingpin of an Iranian organized crime family in Canada which is connected to various international crime organizations. In April 2008, Forbes.com, after consulting with law enforcement agencies around the world, listed him as one of the world’s ten most wanted fugitives.
From FBI
” Omid Tahvili is wanted for his alleged role as the owner and operator of a fraudulent telemarketing business in Vancouver, British Columbia, through which he obtained approximately $3 million from hundreds of primarily elderly victims in the United States. The business operated from 1999 to May of 2002. Tahvili and his co-conspirators allegedly informed the victims that they had either won or had a very good chance of winning a lottery, but that they would have to pay an advance fee in order to obtain the winnings. None of the victims received any of the promised winnings.
A federal arrest warrant was issued for Tahvili on January 30, 2003, by the United States District Court, Central District of California, after he was charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, telemarketing fraud, and aiding and abetting. “
