Queen of cocaine shot dead

The Colombian drug trafficker Griselda Blanco, known as the “queen of cocaine”, has  been shot dead by two  gunmen as she left a butcher shop in Medellin, Colombia.

The motorcycle assassination  was a style she had introduced during drug wars in Miami-Dade County.

 She was 69. In the 1970s and 80s she was at the centre of the cocaine trade in New York and Miami, reportedly making $8 million a month and responsible for the murders of numerous rivals.

Blanco was involved in much of the drug-related violence known as the Cocaine Cowboy Wars that plagued Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when cocaine supplanted  marijuana. Her distribution network, which spanned the United States, brought in $8 million a month.

 She is suspected of having masterminded over 200 murders during the  Cowboy Wars time in  Miami – Dade County, which led to  numerous attempts on her own life. She moved to California  where, in 1985 she was arrested and jailed for 20 years. . She continued to run her cocaine business while in jail and was deported to Colombia on her release  in 2004.