He is Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, the head of a cartel that has brought billions of dollars’ worth of cocaine into the United States, a man with a $5 million (£3 million) price tag on his head — and he has been named by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s most powerful people.

Joaquin Guzman, known as “El Chapo” or Shorty, took 41st place in the new ranking, ahead of Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy and Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel. Guzman is the alleged head of the Sinaloa drug cartel that has funnelled up to $19 billion worth of cocaine into the US through tunnels under the border fence.

He was arrested in Mexico on drug and murder charges in 1993 but managed to escape from prison in 2001.

He is not the only crime boss on the Forbes list: India’s most wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, alleged head of the Mumbai-based D-Company crime syndicate, also makes the cut in 50th place.

Predictably, President Obama “emerged, unanimously, as the world’s most powerful person, and by a wide margin”, Forbes said on its website. “Presides over world’s largest, most innovative, most dynamic economy; Commander-in-Chief of planet’s richest, deadliest military; finger on button of nuclear arsenal containing more than 5,000 warheads; head of state of world’s sole superpower; his Democrats have majorities in both US House and Senate; recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize, apparently for general awesomeness.”

The US leader is followed by President Hu of China and Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister — who is far above the 43rd-ranked Mr Medvedev.

Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, comes in fourth because of the expansion of the US central bank’s role in the current recession. The Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page take joint fifth ahead of Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican mogul, and Rupert Murdoch, media magnate and proprietor of The Times.

Gordon Brown may be headed for a tough election but he, too, made the list, coming in 29th place — behind Silvio Berlusconi (12) and Angela Merkel (15) but ahead of Mr Sarkozy (56). The magazine’s verdict? “Finally moving out of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s shadow in 2007 should have put a smile on the dour Scot’s face. But subprime mess and Blair’s Middle East legacy took care of that. Gained plaudits for global social justice efforts, though.”

Mr Brown is one of only two Britons on the list of 67 — one person for every 100 million of the world’s population — and no, the other one is not the Queen. In 65th place is a surprise entrant: Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, whose channels are watched and listened to by more than 400 million people worldwide. “State support insulates giant from vagaries of advertising market, but not editorial lapses,” Forbes says.

The list puts Osama bin Laden, head of al-Qaeda, in 37th place, calling him the most powerful person in the world unable to use a cellphone. “Despite infrequent communications, persistent rumours of his death, symbolic power undiminished: impressionable youths continue to self-detonate in his name; casus belli of two US-led wars costing over $1 trillion.” Bin Laden comes two places above the Dalai Lama.

Others on the list include Pope Benedict XVI in 11th place as the spiritual leader of one sixth of humanity, and at 45 Oprah Winfrey, the TV talk-show queen who, says the magazine, “can manufacture a best-seller and an American president”. Bill Clinton stands in 31st place, far behind his wife Hillary, the US Secretary of State, in 17th. Mrs Clinton is “not president but now more popular”.

George Bush, though he has been out of office less than a year, apparently didn’t come close to making the list.

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