She’s been called the “Queen of Cocaine,” the “Black Widow,” and La Madrina—“The Godmother.” Now Griselda Blanco, the woman credited with turning Miami into a murder capital in the ‘80s as a pioneer in the modern illicit drug industry, is dead, killed by assassins on motorcycles in Colombia at the age of 69. She was suspected in over 40 drug-related murders—though she was never tried—and deported in 2004. “It’s surprising to all of us that she had not been killed sooner because she made a lot of enemies,” says an ex-Miami homicide detective.
