Griselda Blanco funneled millions of pounds of cocaine into the U.S., and authorities estimate she may have ordered as many as 40 executions of rivals and enemies.
Griselda Blanco in a Miami police mugshot. The 69-year-old was reportedly killed in Colombia on Monday while coming out of a butcher's shop.
A vicious Colombian heavy known as the "Godmother of Cocaine" who funneled millions of pounds of blow into the U.S. in the 70's and 80's was gunned down by motorcycle hitmen on Monday, reports said.
Griselda Blanco, 69, was shot to death in front of her pregnant daughter-in-law as she walked out of a butcher's shop in Medellin, the Miami Herald reported, citing local newspapers.
Two motorcycle gunmen pumped several shots into the aging queenpin's head — a fitting end for the ruthless capo who pioneered the practice of death by "motorcycle assasin," the newspaper reported.
"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 Herald.
Known as the 'Godmother of Cocaine,' Blanco headed up a sophisticated cartel that brought thousands of pounds of cocaine into the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s.
Born in the slums of Medellin, Blanco became the head of a criminal cartel that vastly expanded the U.S. cocaine trade through a complex distribution network beginning in south Florida.
At the height of her empire, some 3,400 pounds of coke was coming into the U.S. every month.
The Medellín Cartel matron relished her outlaw status and even named her youngest son Michael Corleone Blanco, for Al Pacino's character in "The Godfather."
Blanco spent 13 years in prison for drug trafficking and appeared to be headed to death row before a three-count murder indictment against her collapsed in 1998. She served six more years and was deported to Colombia in 2004.
Authorities estimated she ordered at least 40 hits between Miami and New York, though she was only indicted for three of them.
In one of those cases, Blanco's thugs shot and killed the 2-year-old son of a former enforcer as he rode in a car with his father.
In the others, two dealers were slaughtered in their south Miami home as their children watched television in the other room.
Her death was a classic case of 'live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword,' a filmmaker who chronicled the early years of the Miami drug trade told the Miami Herald.
In all, she spent less than 20 years in prison for drug-running and murder and was deported to Colombia in 2004.
In recent years, she was said to be out of the drug game and living comfortably off cash from several real estate investments.
"This is classic live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword," filmmaker Billy Corben, whose documentary, "Cocaine Cowboys," chronicled the coke trade's wild early days, told the Herald. "Or in this case, live-by-the-motorcycle-assassin, die-by-the-motorcycle assassin."
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