"Politics is a dirty game" is one phrase used frequently by regular people and politicians to describe it. This phrase is indeed true. Unfortunately, politicians need to be crafty to climb the political ladder, in addition to specific skills like leadership, integrity and speaking well. In most cases, political ambitions and controversy go hand in hand, but some politicians have steadfastly navigated the murky waters of politics and have succeeded. The proximity to power is what makes political positions desirable. In politics, you have access to the rich and mighty and close multiple deals that help you accumulate wealth. Here are ten politicians who made all their money in politics.
1) Vladimir Putin
This is another of the Russian politicians, Russia's President, whose total net worth experts have been conjecturing is more than what is reported now. Before his public life began in the early 1990s, Putin served as a high-ranking KGB officer for over a decade. Throughout his career, he held jobs like Lieutenant Colonel and Second Chief Directorate. As far as earnings, President Vladimir Putin makes a modest salary of $140,000 a year, which is significantly lower than levels in Russia as well. Even so, he has amassed a net worth of more than 1.8 billion and includes a $1.8 billion mansion by the Black Sea, aircraft, helicopters, and cars. This rich man has acquired a bunch of houses and 700 cars, but he has plenty of others - his helicopter and aircraft collection is estimated at $716 million. Some people attribute Putin's riches to his sly ways of using a tax haven to prevent getting in trouble. He gained much of his fortune through means including using blackmail and doing a lot of trade agreements, as well as having taken control of state-owned companies. This has happened all during his time in politics. And based on that $200 billion guess, not only is he the wealthiest politician, but he's also one of the wealthiest people on earth.
2) Muammar Gaddafi
The slain Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, cannot be forgotten when discussing wealthy politicians who made all their political fortunes. Gaddafi was twice as wealthy as Mexican business magnate, philanthropist, and investor Carlos Slim and ten times richer than Saudi Arabia's late King Abdullah. In 1963, Gaddafi graduated from the University of Libya despite growing up in a low-income family in Sirte, Libya. Afterward, Gaddafi attended the military academy and graduated in 1965. He rose to power in late 1969 when he overthrew King Idris to become Libya's Chief of Staff. His forty-year period of massive plunder, seizure of the country's assets, and suppression of democratic rule, along with earning a terrorist sympathizer title, led to an estimated fortune of $200 billion. It is estimated that Gaddafi was worth about $70 billion at the height of his political career in the late 2000s. Upon his death in 2011, reports suggested that he had an estimated $175 billion stashed away in offshore accounts, making him the wealthiest man alive.
3) Ali Abdulla Saleh
What you'll likely discover on your own, if you haven't already, is that it isn't necessary for politicians to receive financial compensation in order for their job to be fulfilled. This is also true for Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's longtime political leader, who served as president from 1990 to 2012. Saleh, who is accused of having an income of anywhere from $40 to $70 billion during that time, reportedly amassed most of that wealth through political deals and various business transactions within the oil and gas sectors of the country. This wealth was funneled into foreign bank accounts, secret foreign accounts, and hidden overseas in overseas assets and property. Saleh's time in power ended in 2012 with a coup, leading him to resign as president of Yemen.
4) Hosni Mubarak
In most cases, politicians who have accrued wealth through state capture and deceit don't die in biblically shameful ways. Instead, they live long, healthy lives and enjoy their loot well into their old age. Hosni Mubarak was born in 1928 in Monufia, Egypt, and earned a Bachelor's Degree in military sciences and later a Bachelor's Degree in Aviation Sciences before he passed away in 2020 at the age of 91. He became Egypt's president after Anwar Sadat was murdered by jihadists in 1975 after becoming Vice President under Sadat. Many failed assassination attempts took place during Mubarak's regime because of extensive murders, invasions of privacy, and corruption. The wealth Mubarak amassed during his presidency was worth at least $40 billion. In 2011, Mubarak was ousted from power, and the figure was revised to $70 billion after an investigation found billions of dollars stashed away in foreign accounts.
5) Suharto
From what we learned in this article, most politicians with significant wealth also occupied the office of their country's President for a lengthy duration. A major factor for their great wealth was the lack of challenge from elections, as most of them held their positions for extended lengths of time. This bought them enough time to sow the seeds of their greed and embezzle millions of dollars from their shaky economies. But as we shall learn, Suharto was just like them. Nationally and internationally recognized as a dictator, Suharto was Indonesia's president for 31 years. Suharto amassed $55 billion dollars of wealth during this time. Those opposed to his regime denounced him as corrupt, nepotistic, and criminal. To paint the true extent of just how corrupt Suharto was, Transparency International named Suharto the most corrupt world leader of the last 20 years in 2004.
6) Ferdinand Marcos
Marcos, the Philippine president between 1965 and 1986, was a lawyer, politician, and dictator who claimed to be the most decorated war hero in Philippine history. During his time as president, Marcos sought developmental and infrastructural projects funded by foreign debt, with disastrous results--this led to significant poverty and an inescapable debt crisis. Marcos oversaw a number of despotic policies that led to Constitutional revision, media censorship, and violence against the people of the Philippines in an attempt to silence his critics. In Marcos's third term, from 1981 to 1985, his administration's policies lead to economic disaster, as well as unrest following the assassination of an opposition leader. The main factor of Marcos's downfall was when investigators found documents revealing Marcos and his family had misappropriated $6-$10 billion from the Central Bank of the Philippines. The Marcos family held the Guinness World Record for most significant government theft for decades until recently, when Guinness removed the record from their list. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Imee Marcos are both still active in Philippine politics, though their father is deceased.
7) Ibrahim Babangida
Ibrahim Babangida, former Nigerian President and former minister of petroleum, has made his way to the top of the wealthiest politicians in Nigeria with a net worth of $50 billion, most of which he made during his tenure. A predominant military man, he served as Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant Colonel, Major General, and General. For $14 million of it he purportedly stole, most was alleged during the 1992 Gulf War oil windfall. He received an enormous boost after international investments in different industries, such as telecommunications and international real estate. Furthermore, he has invested in multiple forms of local real estate and in other avenues as well. among other costly indulgences, he has an imposing estate, a fancy vehicle fleet, and expensive collectibles.
8) Adolf Hitler
Though Hitler is commonly viewed as the Nazi leader who brought about the Holocaust, it may surprise many to learn that Adolf Hitler was a billionaire. At the time of his rise to power in German politics, he was born into a low-income family living on the Austrian-German border and earned his millions from positions of political power. Adolf Hitler's career as an artist had been fruitless, which made him no more popular than his rejection from Vienna's Fine Arts School. That didn't stop him from later volunteering as a soldier during the war, but afterward, he began his career in politics. Hitler rose to the rank of Chancellor of Germany through the momentum of his newly formed Nazi Party and of the presidential elections that it dominated. During his time, Hitler focused his efforts on amassing as much wealth as possible, with many attributing it to the fact that he came from such a poor background. Much of this money came from corporate donations and government-funded projects. Later, he switched to a more creative approach of stealing money from the government by ordering them to buy copies of his book as wedding gifts. At his peak, Adolf Hitler's assets were worth 1.1 billion Reichsmarks, or around $6.5 billion today.
9) Saddam Hussein
In addition to being a former president of Iraq and its current president, Saddam Hussein has served as a writer, a party leader, and a politician in Iraq. He was officially recognized as president of Iraq in 1979. In 1979, he began serving as Iraq's leader. In 2003, he died with an estimated net worth of $2 billion. In the West, he was despised because of his brutal dictatorship, rejection of human rights, and suppression of opposition groups that challenged his power. Before the United States invaded Iraq, the Iraqi military attempted to withdraw a billion dollars from the Central Bank of Iraq and deposit them into another bank. Eventually, it was discovered that Hussein had been selling Iraq's fuel to other countries, such as Syria and Turkey, through a black market to line his pockets. Military forces found several properties belonging to Saddam, each of which contained hundreds of boxes that were filled with approximately $4 million worth of money. Later, it was discovered that this money was what had previously been siphoned from the Central Bank. Numerous other investigations led to the discovery of wire transfers taking Iraqi money to foreign bank accounts, estimated at $5 to $10 billion.
10) Robert Mugabe
From 1980 to 2017, Robert Mugabe was the president of Zimbabwe. Mugabe was fortunate enough to receive a quality education, earning a Bachelor of Education from the University of Zimbabwe in 1953. He was elected public secretary of the National Democratic Party in 1960. A military youth group was quickly organized to spread the message of independence of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Mugabe quickly gained popularity. Until his escape, he was in custody for over a decade.
His corruption led to Zimbabwe's economic collapse after he became president in 1980. Mugabe's corruption contributed to Zimbabwe's economic collapse. Before his death, Wikileaks put Robert Mugabe's wealth at $1.45 billion, making him a very wealthy man.
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