Manuel Noriega

Born poor in Panama City in 1934, Noriega trained at military schools in Lima and the U.S., then climbed the ranks alongside Omar Torrijos, who seized power in a 1968 coup. He became intelligence chief under Torrijos and, after Torrijos died in 1981, consolidated control to rule Panama as dictator from 1983. For decades he fed information to U.S. intelligence and funneled weapons to American-backed forces across Latin America, even as his military ran drug trafficking operations that built his personal fortune. The alliance fractured after the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the ouster of a presi…