Griselda Blanco
Griselda Blanco (February 15, 1943 to September 3, 2012) was also a member of the Medellin Cartel, founded by Pablo Escobar. Often called “the Black Widow” or the “Cocaine Godmother,” Blanco pioneered the Miami-based cocaine trade from Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s. The nickname “the Black Widow” almost certainly referred to accusations that she had killed her second husband and had had her third husband killed in Colombia.
After leaving home at 14, Blanco supported herself as a small-scale thief and pickpocket through her teen years. In her 20s, she entered the drug trade, eventually immigrating to New York with her second husband, Albert Blanco. The two ran a sizeable cocaine operation in Queens, and were eventually indicted on federal drug charges. They fled to Colombia, but returned to the U.S., settling in Miami, Florida in the late 1970s.
Blanco’s return to the United States led to the start of the Miami Drug War and a period of intense crime and violence in the city of Miami through the 1980s. By the early 1980s, Miami’s drug operations, led by drug lords often called the Cocaine Cowboys brought in some $80,000,000 per month. Soon, conflicts between Blanco and other drug lords led to repeated attempts on her life. While Blanco was responsible for a large number of murders, both by her own hand and through her actions, she was never convicted of any of them.
Arrested by the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1985, Blanco continued her cocaine trafficking from prison for a number of years. Following a failed indictment on three counts of murder in Florida, she was released from prison and deported to Colombia in 2004. She lived in relative hiding until her death in 2012, spotted only once in Bogota, Colombia.