Four Successful Bosses of the Underworld

Here are four mobsters you may of never heard of, but that's probably because that's the way they wanted it. Strong and quiet bosses run strong and quiet criminal organizations.

Semion Mogilevich

One of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives, Semion Mogilevich cuts a frightening figure. Called the "Brainy Don" (he has an economics degree), the Ukrainian-born mobster's gang has a multinational reach, with his hands allegedly in everything from a Pennsylvania-based company that defrauded investors of $150 million to the East European gas trade. His other reputed crimes include murders, arms dealing and drug trafficking. Mogilevich was arrested in Moscow in 2008 for tax evasion, but, brainy and crafty as he is, was released the following year.

Hisayuki Machii

 The Korean-born mobster got his start in the Japanese underworld after settling in Tokyo following World War II. Hisayuki Machii became a regular fixture in the black market and made his name in everything from tourism and prostitution to oil importing. He founded the Tosei-kai gang, which reached its height in the 1960s. The organization allowed Machii to become an essential fixer between Japan and South Korea. His exploits eventually made it possible for him to acquire a ferry service that connected Japan and South Korea along the shortest distance between the two countries. The gang was later disbanded, but Machii followed that up by forming two front organizations, Toa Yuai Jigyo Kumiai and Toa Sogo Kigyo. Machii retired in the 1980s, virtually unscathed by the law, and died in 2002.








Salvatore Riina

"Gentleman, you are making a big mistake," is what Sicilian mobster Salvatore Riina told police when he was apprehended in January 1993 for his dark deeds over more than 20 years as a fugitive and operative in the Sicilian Mafia. He was wanted for his connection to more than 100 killings perpetrated during his climb to the top of the organized-crime gang. Riina, also known as "Toto," was said to have started his career as a hit man. He went into hiding in 1969 after being acquitted of triple homicide. But that didn't stop him from allegedly orchestrating the bloody Mafia wars in 1980s Sicily, which claimed dozens of lives and sealed his post at the top of the organization. In October 1993, despite his attempt to claim a case of mistaken identity, Riina was sentenced to life in prison, the harshest punishment allowed in Italy.

 

 

Dawood Ibrahim

  Mustachioed and portly, it's hard to imagine that Dawood Ibrahim is one of the most dangerous people in the world. Long heralded as the don of the Mumbai underworld, the shadowy Ibrahim went from being a classic extortionist huckster and gold smuggler in the Indian seaside metropolis to a man now implicated in a ring of global terrorist networks that include ties to al-Qaeda. Ibrahim is suspected as a potential suspect in masterminding a 1993 terror attack in Mumbai, which killed hundreds, and may have had a hand in the 2008 attacks on a number of prominent, ritzy Mumbai hotels. What adds to his mystique is that his whereabouts remain unknown — Indian intelligence officials suspect he is in Pakistan, possibly in the port city of Karachi, but the Pakistanis reject those claims. Some estimates of his wealth number into billions of dollars, tracing him to assets and properties from Malaysia to East Africa. In 2008, Forbes ranked him among the top 10 most wanted fugitives; the following year, Ibrahim made the magazine's list of the world's most powerful people.