'Godmother of Cocaine' Grisela Blanco Shot Dead in Colombia
The notorious "Godmother of Cocaine" Griselda Blanco was shot dead Monday in Colombia aged 69. She was also dubbed "The Black Widow" for her tendency to dispose of her men after she is finished with them.
The woman was murdered outside a butcher's shop in Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia. Local media states that Blanco and her pregnant ex daughter in law were exiting the shop when two men arrived in a motorcycle and shot her twice in the head.
When local police arrived at the scene she was laying in a pool of blood and her daughter in law was unharmed. Blanco was taken to the hospital where she later died, according to local media reports.
"She was more dangerous than the devil," an anonymous person who lives in Belen and witnessed the assassination, told the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. The assassins are yet to be identified and authorities are investigating the case.
Blanco, also known as "The Godmother," was portrayed in the 2006 documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" about extremely violent Colombian cocaine barons in the 1980s in Miami. The documentary's sequel "Cocaine Cowboys 2" tells the story of how "The Godmother" controlled a $40 million a year cocaine business from a prison in California.
"The Godmother" gained attention in the 1970s and '80s when she was responsible for shipping multiple tons of cocaine from Colombia to Miami. Investigators also say that she was the mastermind of countless assassinations.
It is also rumored that she introduced drug dealer Pablo Escobar to the world of drugs.
In 1985 she was arrested and jailed in the United States for conspiring to smuggle and distribute cocaine in the country and paid part of her 60-year sentence until 2004 when she was deported to Colombia, according to the newspaper El Tiempo.
Since her last entrance to Colombia, people say she kept a low profile lifestyle and lived with no luxuries. Colombian authorities have no records that she continued to commit criminal offenses, according to El Tiempo.
Blanco had four children, two of them murdered, one currently in jail serving a sentence for drug trafficking in the U.S. and the fourth one living in Colombia, according to Caracol TV.