Dirty Money, Power & Respect: 10 Most Notorious Hood Legends

Robert “Yummy” Sandifer

The vicious 11-year-old member of the Black Disciples gang was known for bullying and extorting money from local children in Chicago’s crime-riddled Roseland neighborhood. Before his execution by fellow gang members, he was a pre-teen with 23 felonies who baffled the penal system and later became a symbol of America’s gang problem.

“Freeway” Ricky Ross

Forever attached to the sloppy, man-booby, date r@pey rapper Rick Ross, “Freeway” Ricky lived everything Rawse raps about as an innovative drug lord in 1980s Los Angeles, California. At the height of his west coast reign, it’s estimated that he made more than a billion dollars exporting tons of cocaine to New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Griselda Blanco

Famously known as the “Black Widow” or “Cocaine Godmother,” she controlled the largest cocaine trade in Miami through violence and intimidation as head of the ruthless Colombian Medellin cartel. According to various reports, she made $80 million a month and had more than a half a billion dollars stashed away in her prime.

Big Meech

Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory co-founded the infamous Black Mafia Family (massive drug trafficking organization operated in Detroit, then Atlanta and Los Angeles) and basically ran Atlanta for years. At the height of his reign, he became the highest-earning Black drug lord in U.S. history and is currently serving a 30-year sentence on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.

Pablo Escobar

The cold-blooded Colombian crime God led the most powerful and feared criminal organization ever. By the mid-80’s, he was one of the most powerful men in the world, with armies of soldiers, a private zoo, several mansions with private airstrips for drug transport and a net-worth of $24 billion.

“El Chapo”

Mexico’s most powerful drug kingpin is the head of the Sinaloa cartel which smuggles multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia to Mexico into the U.S. In 2011, Forbes magazine ranked him as one of the most powerful people in the world. Currently #1 on Mexico’s most-wanted list, he’s suspected to be laying low in one of his many underground fortresses.

Leroy “Nicky” Barnes

Harlem’s most notorious drug lord was the city’s main distributor of heroin in the 1970s and co-founded “The Council” (criminal organization which handled most of the city’s drug trade). By the
mid-’70s, he was known as “Mr. Untouchable” after beating numerous cases and arrests.

Frank Lucas

The disgraced drug lord is mostly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying directly from his source. During his prime, he claimed to have moved $1 million worth of heroin a day before his conviction on drug charges, and eventual cooperation with the FEDs.

Larry Hoover

At 12, he became the leader of the Chicago-based Supreme Gangsters, which merged with a rival gang to become the Gangster Disciple Nation (who recently threatened Ricky Walrus Ross). “King Hoover’s” gang allegedly had over 30,000 “soldiers” in 35 states and made $100 million a year. In 1973, he was sentenced to 150-200 years in prison for murder.

Alberto “Alpo” Martinez

The “Mayor of Harlem” was a Puerto Rican Drug Lord who rose to power in the 80′s alongside Richie Porter and Azie Faison. Played by Cam’ron in “Paid In Full,” he’s one of New York’s most infamous criminals.