{"id":9572,"date":"2012-09-04T22:24:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T22:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dropcents.com\/blog\/?p=9572"},"modified":"2012-09-04T23:08:44","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T23:08:44","slug":"cocaine-godmother-griselda-blanco-gunned-down-in-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dropcents.com\/blog\/cocaine-godmother-griselda-blanco-gunned-down-in-colombia\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyone’s Favorite Godmother ‘Cocaine Godmother’ Griselda Blanco Shot Down in Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Griselda Blanco was believed to have ordered dozens of vicious drug-related slayings in the 1970s and 80s, and was convicted\u00a0of the murder of a 2-year-old in Miami.<\/h3>\n

The Miami Herald<\/a> reported that Griselda Blanco<\/a>, the drug kingpin known for her blood-soaked style of street vengeance during Miami\u2019s \u201ccocaine cowboys\u201d era of the \u201970s and \u201980s, was shot to death in Medellin by a motorcycle-riding assassin Monday.<\/p>\n

Blanco, 69, spent nearly two decades behind bars in the United States for drug trafficking and three murders, including the 1982 slaying of a 2-year-old boy in Miami.<\/p>\n

Called the \u201cGodmother of Cocaine,\u201d she was deported in 2004 to Colombia, where she maintained a low profile.<\/p>\n

Colombia\u2019s national police confirmed her slaying late Monday. According to Colombian press reports, two gunmen on motorcycles pulled up to Blanco as she walked out of a butcher shop in Medellin, her hometown. One man pumped two bullets into her head, according to El Colombiano newspaper. It was the sort of death many had predicted for her: Blanco has been credited with inventing the idea of the \u201cmotorcycle assassin\u201d who rode by victims and sprayed them with bullets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s surprising to all of us that she had not been killed sooner because she made a lot of enemies,\u201d former Miami homicide detective Nelson Andreu, who investigated her, said late Monday. \u201cWhen you kill so many and hurt so many people like she did, it\u2019s only a matter of time before they find you and try to even the score.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former kingpin was with a pregnant daughter-in-law, who was uninjured. According to El Colombiano, the woman told police that Blanco was no longer involved in organized crime and that she was hoping to live off the sales of several properties she owned.<\/p>\n

Blanco came to epitomize the \u201ccocaine cowboy\u201d bloodshed of the 1980s, when rival drug dealers brazenly ambushed rivals in public.<\/p>\n

Raised in the slums of Medellin, she began her criminal career as a pickpocket, eventually commanding an empire that reportedly shipped 3,400 pounds of cocaine per month, by boat and plane. She was considered a Colombian pioneer in drug smuggling to the United States, a precursor to the larger cartels that dominated in the 1980s. She even had a Medellin lingerie shop custom design bras and girdles with special pockets to hold cocaine, a tool used by her drug mules flying to Miami.<\/p>\n

She ran the organization with her three of her four sons, two of whom were later assassinated in Colombia.<\/p>\n

Blanco was known for her flamboyant lifestyle \u2014 one of her sons was named Michael Corleone, an homage to The Godfather movies. Three of her husbands also died in drug-related violence.<\/p>\n

But it was her nasty temper and penchant for unyielding violence that drew the attention of law enforcement and the public.<\/p>\n

Investigators linked her to the daytime 1979 submachine gun attack at Dadeland Mall that shocked Miami. Detectives conservatively estimated that she was behind about 40 homicides.<\/p>\n

She was only convicted of three murders.<\/p>\n

Two of them: Blanco arranged the slayings drug dealers Alfredo and Grizel Lorenzo in their South Miami house, as their three children watched television in another room. They had failed to pay $250,000 for five kilos of cocaine that Blanco had allegedly delivered to them.<\/p>\n

She was also convicted of ordering a shooting that resulted in the death of 2-year-old Johnny Castro, shot twice in the head as he drove in a car with his father, Jesus \u201cChucho\u201d Castro. Blanco was targeting Jesus Castro, a former enforcer for Blanco\u2019s organization.<\/p>\n

Detectives learned the intimate details of the hit from Jorge Ayala, the charismatic hitman who later testified against Blanco. He told police that Blanco wanted Castro killed because he kicked her son in the buttocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first she was real mad \u2019cause we missed the father,\u201d Ayala told police. \u201cBut when she heard we had gotten the son by accident, she said she was glad, that they were even.\u201d<\/p>\n

She had been arrested in 1985 in a cocaine trafficking case in New York. Ultimately, she served 13 years in federal custody before she was handed over to Florida authorities.<\/p>\n

Blanco seemed destined for Florida\u2019s Death Row \u2014 but the prosecution\u2019s murders case was dealt a severe blow.<\/p>\n

The reason: Ayala \u2014 the case\u2019s chief witness \u2014 engaged in phone sex with secretaries from the Miami-Dade State Attorney\u2019s Office. After an investigation, three secretaries were fired and a veteran prosecutor resigned.<\/p>\n

Special prosecutors from Orlando took over the case, and Blanco cut a plea deal in 1998.<\/p>\n

Blanco was sentenced to three concurrent 20-year sentences, of which she had to serve only about one-third because of guidelines in effect at the time of the murders. Even on her return to Colombia, she was believed to have held onto immense wealth.<\/p>\n

In recent years, younger Miamians were introduced to Blanco via two \u201cCocaine Cowboys<\/strong><\/em><\/span>\u201d documentaries made by filmmakers Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is classic live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword,\u201d Corben said Monday. \u201cOr in this case, live-by-the-motorcycle-assassin, die-by-the-motorcycle assassin.\u201d<\/p>\n