Griselda Blanco, Colombian drug lord (b. 1943)
Griselda Blanco Restrepo (February 14, 1943 – September 3, 2012), known as the Black Widow was a Colombian drug lady of the Medellín Cartel and in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade and underworld during the 1980’s through the early 2000’s. She was a low-level criminal who was chosen because of her sex in the belief that law enforcement wouldn’t concentrate major resources on a female suspect. Her criminal importance has been exaggerated in Western media, simply because of her sex and was never a major player in the drug trade. It has been estimated that she was responsible for up to 200 murders (although cartel bosses in Columbia who gave her orders only wanted roughly 20% of that total murdered - she ordered the remainder murder victims killed for no purpose other than viciousness) while transporting cocaine from Colombia to New York, Miami and Southern California. Her undoing (some have speculated her own eventual murder) was the result of successfully hiring killers to; kidnap, rape, torture, murder and in an act of humiliation, dump the corpse on a street of a young female relative, of one of the founders of the Medellin Cartel. She was shot and killed on September 3, 2012, at the age of 69. At the height of her notoriety, Blanco was one of the most vile females in the world.