Gangsters in the real world

Al Capone -  It seemed for years as if law enforcement couldn't touch him. As head of the Chicago-based Italian-American empire known as the Outfit, Capone was guilty of any number of sins, from gambling and prostitution to bootlegging and narcotics trafficking to robbery, bribery and murder. Though his record is long, Capone gained the most notoriety for the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which seven high-ranking members of a rival gang were shot dead. Though Capone himself had arranged to conveniently be vacationing at the time, there was little doubt the job didn't have the boss's approval. But what finally brought the mobster down was one of his most minor offenses: tax evasion. The lesser crime — and lighter sentence it carried — meant one of the most notorious crooks of all time served just seven years, six months and 15 days behind bars.

Pablo Escobar -  would steal tombstones and sell them to smugglers in Panama. From those devious roots, he entered the coca business in the 1970s, just as the U.S.'s obsession with the highly addictive drug began. Thanks to his ruthless ambition, Escobar built up Colombia's now infamous Medellin cartel into a powerful drug-trafficking enterprise that by the 1980s controlled more than 80% of cocaine shipped to the U.S., making him one of the 10 richest people in the world. After his death (he was gunned down at age 44 while on the run), books and movies shed light on just how lucrative his empire was. His son Juan Pablo Escobar (who changed his name to Sebastian Marroquin) said his father once burned some $2 million to keep himself and his daughter warm while they were on the lam. Another tale said Escobar once offered to pay off his country's $10 billion national debt