[BITList] Thomas Tew who pilfered a ship full of gold from India

[John Feltham]

Top-Earning Pirates
Sep.19.2008

Snipped from
http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/09/18/top-earning-pirates-biz-logistics-cx_mw_0919piracy.html

High seas piracy was the colonial era's version of investment banking.
Through good positioning, aggressive go-getters could make millions
from global trade and commerce in diverse sectors. They were
frequently chased off shore to the Caribbean by angry governments.
And in the end, they were sometimes sunk without a trace. Not
soon after government-hired pillagers like Hernando Cortes started
plundering the new world in 1503, an entire class of sailor realized
he could profit by stalking the ships carrying the spoils.

The highest-earning pirate ever was Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy,
an Englishman who made his bones patrolling the New England coast
in the 18th century. By our calculations, "Black Sam" plundered an
estimated $120 million over the course of his career.

In second place, with lifetime earnings of $115 million: Sir Francis  
Drake,
a 16th century British privateer who saved England from the Spanish
Armada and went on to a profitable life of plunder at the behest of Her
Majesty's Government. Fellow Englishman Thomas Tew places third
with earnings of $102 million. His biggest score came in 1693, when
he pilfered a ship full of gold en route to the Ottoman Empire from  
India.


ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.