Mexican drug kingpin makes Forbes' 'powerful' list

Last update: November 13, 2009 - 11:10 PM

Print this story

More from World

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans were none too pleased to read that their country's most-wanted cocaine kingpin has been ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the most powerful people in the world.

Joaquin Guzman -- alias El Chapo, Spanish for "Shorty" -- was listed by Forbes this week as No. 41 in a collection of 67 ("one for every 100 million people on the planet") movers, shakers, rulers and crooks judged as the people who really run the world.

Juan de Dios Castro with the Mexican attorney general's office said the inclusion of Guzman was "frivolous."

Mexican officials have long been irked over newspaper reports, especially in the United States, that emphasize the blood-soaked war the government is waging against heavily armed drug cartels.

Forbes says it wanted to start a "conversation" with its first such list and asked whether naming "despicable criminals" like Guzman was an accurate reflection of power.

Guzman is head of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's oldest and largest drug-trafficking organization. He has been on the lam since escaping in 2001 from a maximum-security prison days after a court ruled he could be extradited to the United States.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Recent World stories

Mumbai Jewish center struggles to rebuild as city still vulnerable 1 year after terror attack - November 13, 2009

Mumbai Jewish center struggles to rebuild as city still vulnerable 1 year after terror attack - The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes. Dozens of holes, blasted by grenades, pockmark the linoleum floors. More