Griselda Blanco: The Innovator
Griselda Blanco is surely a legend in the cocaine trafficking game here and abroad. Drug networks supplied with Colombian cocaine “La Madrina” (or “The Godmother”) oversaw were the means of her fortune. She is touted as a pioneer in the Colombia-to-America drug trade, starting her endeavors in the 70’s in New York, becoming the biggest cocaine trafficker the Big Apple had ever seen at the time. After she caught charges there, she fled to Colombia, only to come back and set up shop in Miami, where she did it even bigger. Blanco is viewed as a pioneer of importing cocaine into the United States from Colombia, and has even been noted as a mentor to Pablo Escobar, the biggest drug dealer the world has ever known. To ascend to such a status, one needs to make a lot of money and spill even more blood. Blanco is known for both. You can’t be a dummy to make such an enterprise work. Blanco flexed her cerebral braun by innovating a couple of methods and implementing them into the cocaine game.
Blanco acquired a reported net worth of $2 billion from her coke exploits. This meant moving tons of blow into the United States from her native Colombia. She reportedly started out importing 150-kilo shipments into New York, but her hauls increased to 1,500 kilos (about 3,400 pounds) of cocaine every month during her Miami run, which translated to about $8 million monthly. Drug smuggling is no easy task, especially with the number Blanco was working with. To help her mules move across borders with product undetected, Blanco invented her own line of underwear with secret compartments to hide drugs in. She went so far as to establish a lingerie shop in her hometown of Medellin to manufacture custom drug smuggling bras and girdles.
Besides coke and money, Blanco’s name is most synonymous with killing. She is responsible for an estimated 250 deaths during her reign. She started early, getting her first body at the age of 11, after shooting a 10-year-old boy that she kidnapped between the eyes in Colombia, after his family failed to pay the ransom demanded. She would go on to have more children killed as an adult. She earned the nickname “The Black Widow” after killing three husbands in a row. She coordinated the infamous 1979 shootout at Dadeland Mall in Miami where three gunmen hopped out of a “war wagon” and sprayed 40 to 60 shots to kill two men and injue a store clerk. However, Blanco also introduced a killing technique to the world that was not seen before her, but lives on today here and in Colombia: the motorcycle assassin. Through her team of hitmen, known as Los Pistoleros, Blanco masterminded the hit style involving two men on a motorcycle. As one drives, the other sprays a machine gun at targets while riding on the back.
Credit: FOX 5 New York
In other industries, such innovations would be patented and the inventor would be the recipient of acclaim and praise. However, in the industry Blanco was in, one of her inventions ironically led to her demise. She managed to keep a low profile in Colombia after being deported in 2004. However, she still had contracts on her head and motorcycle assassins hit her up in Medellin as she exited a butcher’s market in 2012. Her innovations have been featured in the news (i.e. failed drug smuggling attempts) and on the screen, in films and shows like New Jack City and The Wire. Just another aspect of the complex being that was Griselda Blanco de Trujillo.
