The saying “crime does not pay” is seriously misguided. In many twisted ways, crime can be a surprisingly lucrative venture—especially when the illegal deeds end up fueling hit records that keep raking in royalties. Below you’ll meet ten notorious offenders whose misdeeds inadvertently catapulted some of the world’s most famous musicians onto the global stage.
10 criminals who changed music history
10 Anders Klarström
Anyone who spent the ’90s swooning over glossy boy‑bands probably never bothered to look into the ultra‑obscure Nazi‑punk outfit Commit Suicide. The only apparent fan in that bizarre Venn diagram was Ulf Ekberg, who later co‑founded Ace of Base. Together with Anders Klarström—who would later become the head of the Swedish Democrats—Ekberg used Commit Suicide as a vehicle for extremist propaganda. Their lyrics were a brutal litany of hate, featuring lines like “Men in white hoods march down the road, we enjoy ourselves when we’re sawing off n—rs’ heads/ Immigrant, we hate you! Out, out, out, out! Nordic people, wake up now! Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!” Klarström’s words weren’t mere artistic hyperbole; he even threatened to immolate Jewish theatre director Hagge Geigert and was later found in possession of an illegal arms cache in 1986, leading to his conviction and the band’s dissolution.
With Commit Suicide gone, Ekberg needed a fresh musical outlet. In August 1990, Jonas Berggren asked his friend Ekberg to fill in for an absent bassist. A few weeks later the line‑up solidified, and the group—featuring Berggren’s two sisters on vocals—became Ace of Base.
It would be a grave mistake to dismiss Ace of Base as a fleeting fad. Their early‑’90s mania reshaped pop music, delivering ear‑catching anthems like “The Sign” and “All That She Wants.” Behind the scenes, a cadre of Swedish songwriters crafted a maximalist, feel‑good sound that dominated radio waves by decade’s end. In short, a violent extremist’s downfall unintentionally paved the way for one of the era’s most influential pop acts.
9 Raffaele Minichiello
Raffaele Minichiello is technically a musician in his own right—he runs a YouTube channel showcasing his accordion chops. Yet his claim to fame rests on a far more infamous claim: he holds the record for the longest airplane hijacking in history.
On 30 October 1969, Minichiello boarded TWA Flight 85 from San Francisco to Los Angeles, concealing an M1 rifle in his luggage. He pressed the weapon against a stewardess’s back and demanded the aircraft be diverted to Rome. The hijacked plane trekked nearly 7,000 miles over 18 hours and 22 minutes before landing in Italy, where authorities arrested Minichiello after an exhaustive manhunt. He served merely a year and a half behind bars.
Among the 40 passengers were members of the 1960s pop group Harpers Bizarre. After Minichiello released the captives in Denver as a goodwill gesture, reporters trailed the band, hoping to capture a sensational story. Unfortunately, the experience made Harpers Bizarre wary of touring; their reluctance sparked internal friction and ultimately contributed to their breakup.
One former member, Ted Templeman, suddenly found himself jobless. Less than a year after the hijacking, he secured an entry‑level A&R role at Warner Brothers. While sifting through demo tapes, Templeman stumbled upon two acts that would become titanic forces in rock: The Doobie Brothers and Van Halen. In other words, a hijacked flight indirectly helped launch two of the most iconic bands of the 1970s.
8 Sabrina Jackson’s Killer
When Sabrina Jackson’s lifeless body was discovered in 1983, no one placed the customary coins on her eyes, and the perpetrator vanished without a trace. Rumors swirled that her murder was a retaliatory strike tied to her cocaine‑trafficking operation. The crime was far more calculated than a typical drive‑by: a guest entered her home with murderous intent, slipped a sedative into her drink, and once she was unconscious, turned on the gas before slipping away.
Jackson’s eight‑year‑old son, Curtis, was already a troubled kid. Abandoned by his father and orphaned after his mother’s violent death, Curtis lived with his aging grandmother, who struggled to keep him in line. To ease the family’s financial strain, Curtis turned to drug dealing, eventually rising to become the neighborhood’s kingpin by age nineteen. After a few stints in jail, he vowed to quit the trade once his own son, Marquise, was born. He turned to rapping—a skill he honed during incarceration. His stage name, inspired by the traditional practice of resting quarters on a dead person’s eyes, became 50 Cent, a moniker that would later dominate the rap charts.
7 Richard Mason’s Killers
Kit Lambert never imagined a career in music. Born to a composer and actress, he expected a genteel life among the educated elite. In May 1961, he joined two Oxford friends—Richard Mason and John Hemming—on an expedition to locate the source of Brazil’s Iriri River. The venture failed, and on 3 September, Mason set out for food, only to stumble upon the reclusive Panará tribe. The isolated Amazonians, terrified of outsiders, stabbed and killed him. Police initially arrested Lambert and Hemming, suspecting they fabricated the tale to evade murder charges, but backers from the Daily Express secured their release.
Back in England, Lambert pivoted to film, serving as an assistant director on titles like From Russia with Love and The L‑Shaped Room. While working on the latter, he met fellow assistant director Chris Stamp. Stamp persuaded Lambert to check out a band called The High Numbers. The duo saw documentary potential, and after becoming enamored with the group’s backstage antics, they abandoned filmmaking ambitions. Lambert agreed to manage the band on the condition they change their name, suggesting The Who. Thus, a near‑death experience in the Amazon indirectly led to the birth of one of rock’s greatest acts.
6 Jim Gordon
As a prolific session drummer in 1970s California, Jim Gordon’s name appears on countless records, and his influence only grew through sampling. His most famous contribution is the thunderous break on the Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of “Apache,” which has been sampled over seven hundred times—a rhythm now dubbed “the national anthem of hip‑hop.” This beat powered early hip‑hop pioneers, becoming a staple in DJ Kool Herc’s legendary parties and the first record scratched by turntablist Grand Wizzard Theodore.
Unfortunately, Gordon’s talent was eclipsed by personal demons. Decades of drug abuse eroded his mental health, leading to auditory hallucinations and violent outbursts. After a psychiatric hospitalization, he emerged convinced his mother was tormenting him with messages. In a tragic climax, he bludgeoned her with a hammer and then stabbed her to death. As of 2021, Gordon remains confined to a mental‑health facility, his musical legacy forever tainted by his brutal act.
5 King Ludwig II
King Ludwig II of Bavaria was a man enchanted by fairy‑tale grandeur, squandering public funds on fantastical castles even as Prussian forces threatened his realm. Among his extravagant projects were a cavernous indoor grotto atop a man‑made lake—perfect for role‑playing his favorite opera characters—and the iconic Neuschwanstein, which later inspired Disney’s Cinderella Castle. Ludwig believed himself the reincarnation of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and his obsession manifested in bizarre behaviors: carving swans on every wall, conversing with imagined courtiers, and even committing violent acts like stealing a citizen’s purse, strangling his brother with a rope, and orchestrating a bank robbery.
In 1886, the Bavarian government declared Ludwig insane and deposed him. The following day his body was found floating in a pond, and the physician who diagnosed his madness was also dead under mysterious circumstances. Some historians speculate Ludwig killed the doctor before drowning himself, while others spin elaborate conspiracies. Regardless of the murky ending, Ludwig’s patronage left an indelible mark on music history.
Ludwig was a closeted homosexual who lavished composer Richard Wagner with lavish gifts and financial support, seeking the composer’s affection. Though Wagner rebuffed his advances, he relied on Ludwig’s generosity. Before meeting the king, Wagner contemplated retirement, telling a friend that “only a miracle can help me now or I am done for.” Ludwig’s endless funding allowed Wagner to create some of opera’s most enduring masterpieces.
4 Morris Levy
When Tommy James arrived in New York with a demo of “Hanky Panky,” every label he approached showed keen interest—until they all turned him down the next day. Morris Levy, the iron‑fisted head of Roulette Records, threatened those labels, warning that if they poached James, the Genovese crime family would “pay them an unpleasant visit.”
Levy, a convicted extortionist and mob affiliate, ran Roulette as a criminal enterprise, bootlegging rival records and intimidating competitors. He even employed payola, bribing disc jockeys to push his signees. Under his ruthless management, Tommy James’s string of unforgettable hits received the airplay they deserved, cementing James’s place in rock history.
The partnership was costly. Roughly $40 million of James’s royalties were siphoned into Levy’s illicit ventures—prostitutes, tax shelters, and monthly dues to the Genovese family. The tension boiled over when James, in a drug‑induced brawl, pulled a gun on Levy. In retaliation, Levy hurled James against a wall. The rival Gambino family even placed a hit on James, but political influence from Vice President Hubert Humphrey saved his life. The saga showcases how criminal muscle can both launch and jeopardize a musical career.
3 Lou Pearlman
Lou Pearlman began his business life with a classic con: a fraudulent blimp company that never owned a single airship. He raised capital by promising investors a fleet of blimps, then sabotaged the inaugural flight with a repurposed weather balloon, collecting insurance money to fund borderline legitimate ventures. His next scheme involved a private‑plane service, which he leveraged after New Kids on the Block booked a flight, prompting him to realize the massive profit potential of managing boy bands.
Pearlman went on to create the two titans of the ’90s boy‑band boom—Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC—engineering a faux rivalry that filled his pockets with stolen profits. When the groups finally escaped his exploitative contracts, they dropped him as manager, cutting off his main revenue stream. Undeterred, Pearlman launched a massive retirement‑pyramid scheme, for which he was sentenced in 2008 to 25 years in prison.
Despite his criminal downfall, Pearlman’s influence on pop music endured. He hired a then‑unknown Max Martin, who would become one of the most successful songwriters of all time, penning countless chart‑toppers while Pearlman languished behind bars. By 2021, Martin had authored the third‑most number‑one songs in history, a legacy indirectly rooted in Pearlman’s shady empire.
2 Owsley Stanley
Hippies prided themselves on rebelling against authority, yet their most enduring musical export was inadvertently birthed by a covert CIA program. In the 1950s, the CIA explored LSD as a potential truth serum, conducting ethically abhorrent experiments that involved non‑consensual dosing, resulting in trauma, coma, and even death for many subjects.
One of those experiments introduced writer Ken Kesey to LSD, and through a CIA contact, Owsley Stanley—nicknamed “the Chemist”—supplied Kesey and his Merry Pranksters with massive quantities of the drug. The Pranksters’ infamous acid‑laden road trips featured the band The Warlocks, whose improvisational jams mirrored the hallucinogenic experience. Stanley’s illegal LSD operation financed The Warlocks’ early tours, and the group later reinvented themselves as The Grateful Dead, becoming a cornerstone of psychedelic rock.
Thus, a clandestine government program aimed at weaponizing a mind‑altering substance unintentionally fueled a cultural revolution, producing music that still reverberates through generations.
1 Michael Maybrick
Let’s start with the undeniable fact: Duke Ellington reshaped jazz and left an indelible mark on music history. While Ellington’s iconic 1927 composition “Black and Tan Fantasy” seemed original, its melodic structure was heavily inspired by Michael Maybrick’s 1892 hymn “The Holy City.” Manager Irving Mills recognized the potential in Ellington’s blend of jazz with Maybrick’s hymn, signing the pianist after hearing the tune echo through a downtown dive bar.
Maybrick’s own biography is shrouded in mystery and scandal. Though celebrated for his hymn, rumors suggest he may have orchestrated the murder of his sister‑in‑law to frame her for poisoning his brother. Some researchers even argue he could be the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper, pointing to circumstantial evidence: Maybrick’s concert tours aligned with the locations of the Ripper’s letters, he was a high‑ranking Freemason, and bodies were discovered near his lodgings. Whether fact or fiction, Maybrick’s dark legacy is a stark contrast to the bright legacy of Ellington, who unknowingly borrowed from Maybrick’s work.
In Bruce Robinson’s book *They All Love Jack*, the author presents a compelling case that Maybrick was the true identity behind the Jack the Ripper murders. The theory weaves together Masonic symbols, travel itineraries, and forensic clues, suggesting Maybrick’s murderous spree inadvertently helped launch Ellington’s career by providing a hauntingly familiar melody that would become a jazz standard.