Veerappan

Koose Muniswamy Veerappan was born in Karnataka's Gopinatham village in a Tamil Vanniyar family of cattle-grazers. He started as an assistant to his relative Sevi Gounder, a notorious poacher and sandalwood smuggler and began his career in crime in 1970. Veerappan started off as sandalwood and ivory smuggler, killing elephants for ivory poaching but later started killing those who opposed his activities. His first murder was committed at 17 years of age. Over the years Veerappan's victims included forest officials, police officers and informers. Veerappan defied the state governments of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and the Border Security Force for over a decade. He was wanted for killing approximately 184 people, poaching about 200 elephants and smuggling ivory worth 2,600,000 dollars and about 10,000 tons of sandalwood worth approximately 22,000,000 dollars. A reward of 50 million rupees was offered for his capture, yet he dodged arrest for 20 years until killed by police on October 18, 2004.