UNTROUBLED: Griselda Blanco, who was killed this week, casually lounged around — despite having hundreds of murders to her name. (
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She named her youngest son Michael Corleone, gunned down her own husband in a bitter drug dispute, and was unofficially tied to more than 200 murders across two continents.
Miami cocaine queenpin Griselda Blanco relished the violent “Scarface” lifestyle that made her one of the richest and most feared drug dealers in the world.
But the same bloodthirsty approach that took Blanco to the top of her trade spelled her own inevitable doom when she was murdered Monday on a Colombian street in a fashion she practically invented.
Blanco, 69, was killed by motorcycle-riding assassins as she walked out of a butcher shop in her hometown of Medellin, according to a local report.
Officials said it was Blanco herself who had perfected the two-wheel drive-by hit, a ruthless weapon she allegedly employed to eliminate rivals and keep subordinates in line.
Blanco was shot two times in the head, authorities said. She was with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was unharmed.
“This is classic live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword,” filmmaker Billy Corben, who immortalized Blanco in a documentary called “Cocaine Cowboys,” told the Miami Herald.
“Or in this case, live-by-the-motorcycle-assassin, die-by-the-motorcycle-assassin.”
Blanco had kept a relatively low profile in Colombia after being deported in 2004 from the United States, where authorities said she ruled a drug empire that first opened trafficking routes between Miami and Colombia.
At its peak, the business shipped as much as a ton and a half of cocaine per month into the United States by boat and plane, some of it carried by drug mules wearing custom-designed bras and girdles with special pockets.
In the early 1970s, Blanco and her second husband, Alberto Bravo, fearlessly took on the mob in New York City, using her direct ties to Colombia to carve out a large share of the drug market and make millions of dollars.
But the operation drew the attention of law-enforcement authorities, who netted them in a sting. Before the grand jury was set to hand up indictments, Bravo managed to escape to Colombia, where she killed him in a parking lot shootout over what she saw as missing profits, officials said.
Years earlier, she had ordered a hit on her first husband, Carlos Trujillo, after a drug dispute, officials said.
After Bravo’s death, Blanco took full control over the drug empire, making her way back to the States, this time to Miami to solidify her reign as Queen of Cocaine.
Blanco had more nicknames than a professional wrestler. To some she was the “Queen of Cocaine.” To others she was “The Black Widow.” Most admirers and detractors kept it simple. They called her “La Madrina” — “The Godmother.”
She had an enemies list that included the DEA and cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar, whom she helped get his start in the drug business.
Investigators linked her to the daytime 1979 submachine-gun attack at Dadeland Mall that shocked Miami.
But her empire nearly crumbled when she allegedly ordered a hit on another drug trafficker, Jesus Castro, supposedly for an offense against one of her sons.
Hit men missed the target, but killed Castro’s 2-year-old son.
Detectives learned the details of the botched hit from Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, a hit man who testified against Blanco. He told police that Blanco wanted Castro dead because he kicked her son in the buttocks.
“At first she was real mad ’cause we missed the father,” Ayala told police. “But when she heard we had gotten the son by accident, she said she was glad, that they were even.”
But for all her fearlessness on the street, Blanco waited until she was behind bars to attempt her most brazen caper and cement her legend.
While serving time on the murder charge, Blanco plotted an elaborate scheme to have her henchmen kidnap John F. Kennedy Jr. in exchange for her release from prison.
But the plot fell apart and Griselda ended up finishing her sentence of 20 years.
“It’s surprising to all of us that she had not been killed sooner, because she made a lot of enemies,” former Miami homicide detective Nelson Andreu told the Miami Herald.
“When you kill so many and hurt so many people, like she did, it’s only a matter of time before they find you and try to even the score.”
Her Enforcer
Jorge “rivi” Ayala
who pulled off her killing spree of up to 200
Her prodigy
Pablo Escobar
whom she helped get his start in the cocaine game
Her target
John F. Kennedy Jr.
whom she plotted to kidnap in a ploy to get out of prison