If you think of a terrifying drug lord, the likes of Pablo Escobar and El Chapo spring to mind for most people - but there's also a lesser known female who gave those fellas a good run for their money.
With a nickname like 'The Cocaine Godmother', you'd reckon that Griselda Blanco's reputation would precede her, yet she often gets overlooked in favour of her male counterparts - even though Sofia Vergara starred as her in a Netflix series. Take a look at the trailer here:
As you can see, the Queenpin's story is just as action-packed and chaotic as her peers.
Advert
She invented a chilling murder method during her years working as a key figure in Miami's underworld, which eventually came back to bite her - as she ended up being killed with the same technique she created. Oh, the irony.
Blanco was once a top player in the infamous drug wars that tore through the US party hotspot back in the 1980s and she rose through the ranks to become one of the world's major bosses in the cocaine industry.
Also known as the 'Black Widow', she lived a life full to the brim with crime, violence and ruthless escapades.
Her first criminal offence is alleged to have occurred when she was just 11-years-old, according to her former lover Charles Cosby, so you can imagine what kind of chequered past she had.
Advert
The Colombia-born criminal ran away from home when she was 19 and eventually made her way into the States with fake papers in 1964, where she found a husband and had three kids.
On top of this, she also got to work setting up a thriving drugs operation transferring cocaine between her home country and key cities such as Miami and New York.
Blanco's hands got a lot dirtier than that though when she was running the show.
Advert
The mum was responsible for a string of gory murders and violent revenge attacks, while banking billions of dollars with her illegal enterprise between the late 1970s all the way through to the 1980s.
But it all came crashing down in February 1985, when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) busted into her home and charged her with conspiracy to manufacture, import, and distribute cocaine, before being sent down for 15 years.
While she was locked up, Blanco was also slapped with three counts of first-degree murder, one of which included that of a two-year-old boy.
She later pleaded guilty to the charges and had another 20 years added to her sentence - but the drug lord was suspected of being responsible for at least 40 other murders, possibly as many as 200.
Advert
So, it almost made sense that 'The Cocaine Godmother' went on to die exactly how she lived - quite literally.
Blanco has long-been credited for a particular method of killing which, ironically, went on to be the cause of her own death back in September of 2012.
The drug-lord reportedly coined the idea of drive-by motorcycle murders, which oddly ended up becoming the exact method that took her life.
Advert
After serving almost two decades in US prisons and being deported back to Colombia in 2004, she was standing on the street outside a butcher shop in her hometown of Medellin when two hitmen racing past on motorbikes gunned her down.
They shot her twice in the head and she died instantly, aged 69.
Speaking of the irony that La Madrina pioneered the very murder method that went on to kill her, Professor Bruce Bagley, head of the University of Miami's department of international studies, put it down the whole thing down to karma.
He told The Guardian at the time."It's some kind of poetic justice that she met an end that she delivered to so many others.
"Here is a woman who made a lot of enemies on her rise and was responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of people.
"She might have retired to Colombia and wasn't anything like the kind of player she was in her early days, but she had lingering enemies almost everywhere you look," the professor explained. "What goes around comes around."
Featured Image Credit: Metro Dade Police Department/Griselda BlancoTopics: Crime, True Crime, World News, Drugs, US News