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TWO FACED
A RUTHLESS drugs kingpin is rumoured to be living it up in Cuba after faking his own death to escape the clutches of the FBI and his deadly rival El Chapo.
Amado Carrillo Fuentes was the most powerful cocaine trafficker in Mexico in the late 1990s with a personal fortune of £25 BILLION.
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However, months after the Feds made him their prime target he "died" while apparently having plastic surgery to change his appearance.
A grisly video was even released in 1997 said to show Fuentes in his coffin, however the face was so badly damaged it was not identifiable.
At the time, some of those involved in hunting down Fuentes refused to believe the body that was buried belonged to the crafty cocaine baron.
However, the US Drugs Enforcement Agency has compared the unlikely claims to those that Elvis Presley is still alive.
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Conspiracy theorists to this day insist one of his luckless henchmen was killed and his corpse had then undergone surgery to make it look more like his boss.
His cousin Sergio Carrillo sparked the bizarre rumours after the funeral when he said: “Amado is fine. He is alive.
"He had surgery and also had surgery practiced on some poor unfortunate person to make everybody believe it was him, including the authorities.”
There have also been reports in the Mexican press that Fuentes was spotted with his daughter years after his apparent demise.
The claims about Fuentes - who will be one of the characters in the fourth series of Narcos on Netflix - have been laughed off by the authorities and branded nothing more than bizarre conspiracy theories.
However, the man believed to have carried out the surgery was then found dead in horrific and disturbing circumstances.
The bodies of plastic surgeon Jaime Godoy Singh and his "two assistants" were found stuffed into cement-filled oil drums.
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The gruesome barrels were found abandoned along the main highway which runs between Mexico City and Acapulco.
Police said the bodies had been handcuffed and blindfolded. They had been strangled and at least one shot in the neck.
The victims' fingernails had been pulled out, and their chests and arms were covered with burns - apparent signs of torture.
Carrillo was known as the 'Lord of the Skies' because he flew shipments of cocaine on a fleet of Boeing 747s from Colombia to the US/Mexican border.
While building his empire, he negotiated with Colombian cartels to take over an increasing share of the drug distribution in the States
The secretive drug baron also excelled in corrupting Mexican politicians and law enforcement officials to guarantee impunity for his actions.
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Mexico's top anti-drug official - a leading military official - was even jailed for allegedly being on Carrillo's regular payroll.
His fort-like £20m middle east-themed mansion was called 'The Palace of a Thousand and One Nights'.
Fuentes was the head of the Juarez Cartel, achieving this title after killing former boss and friend Rafael Aguilar Guajardo.
Shortly before his own "death" he barely escaped a raid by army troops on the wedding party of his sister in Sinaloa state.
The FBI-backed raid and the fact he was being hunted by Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman are said to be the reason why he fled.
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In the months before his death the then 41-year-old visited Cuba where he made investments aimed at establishing a new home.
Most believe that is where he is now living the life of luxury with the girlfriend who disappeared days after his funeral.
He is thought to have secretly smuggled BILLIONS to the island in the months leading up to his supposed death.
Other reports claim he is living and Chile and has been working with the FBI to bring down the Mexican cartels.
Journalists who have tried to probe the mystery in Mexico say they have hit "brick walls" when dealing with the authorities.
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There’s reportedly no DNA or forensic evidence to link the body in the coffin with Fuentes and very little paperwork exists about his death.
However, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration clearly believes the kingpin did die in surgery.
''The rumour (he is alive) has as much credibility as the millions of sightings of the late Elvis Presley,'' they have said.
Another drug lord supposedly killed in 2010, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, is also rumoured to be alive and well.
Coronel was one of four leaders of the powerful Sinaloa Federation headed by notorious billionaire El Chapo.
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Known as the “King of Crystal” for his domination of the crystal meth trade, Coronel ran the cartel’s operations in much of western Mexico from his base in Guadalajara.
In her 2013 book, Narcoland, investigative journalist Anabel Hernández reported that the deceased’s fingerprints matched those of one Dagoberto Rodríguez, a man once arrested alongside Coronel in 1993.
Furthermore, Hernández revealed that doctors placed his age at 40 to 45, but Coronel would have been 56 at the time.
No DNA test was conducted, and some of those who saw the corpse reportedly said it “bore little or no resemblance” to a recent photo of Coronel.
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