Griselda Blanco Was Reportedly Once Worth $2 Billion — What Happened to Her Money?

Jan. 25 2024, Published 1:36 p.m. ET

Griselda Blanco was born into poverty in probably the most poorest portions of Cartagena, Colombia. That area of the town was so unhealthy, "kids would amuse themselves by digging holes in the ground to bury the bodies that littered the city’s filthy streets, and would resort to petty crime to make ends meet," in step with Maxim. As with maximum crimes, desperation can force an individual to unfathomable places. Blanco would later become some of the biggest drug traffickers in Miami within the overdue 1970s.

It's unclear what she enjoyed extra: money or energy. By all accounts, she had plenty of each. It's reported that at her height, Blanco was worth around $2 billion. In 1985, her reign of terror in the end ended when drug enforcement brokers caught up with Blanco in Irvine, Calif., on Feb. 17. At this point she have been a big player within the drug trafficking game for a decade. So, what happened to Griselda Blanco's money? Here's what we all know.

What happened to Griselda Boanco's money? Her property were almost certainly seized through DEA brokers.

While we will't be certain that how much Blanco was worth at the time of her arrest, what we do know is whatever belongings she had have been indubitably seized through the DEA. According to their own website, asset forfeiture is the "government taking of property, because it was used or obtained in violation of the law." Some examples of belongings matter to seizure are "cars, cash, real estate, or anything of value used to commit a drug crime or bought with drug proceeds."

Distractify spoke with Duncan Levin, the previous Chief of Asset Forfeiture on the Manhattan District Attorney's Office who was within the asset forfeiture and money laundering phase and specialised in forfeiture for the federal government. He defined that once the DEA seizes cash, it is going right into a checking account held by way of the U.S. Marshals Service and is held until there is a forfeiture.

"When there is a forfeiture, it gets sent to the United States Treasury for the general fund for the government. It is not being held by law enforcement on a federal level at all," he mentioned.

As far as Blanco is going, it is possible she had money hidden in other places, as stories of her rising paranoia have been pervasive, however that is just a concept. What we do know is, she was nonetheless making money after her 1985 arrest with the help of a person named Charles Cosby.

Who is Charles Cosby? He was Blanco's trade and romantic spouse.

Charles Cosby was living in East Oakland, Calif., when he stuck the inside track tale about Blanco's February 1985 arrest. In the 2008 documentary Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' With the Godmother, Cosby tells the story of ways they met and went into industry in combination. "I was floored," he stated upon studying about Blanco. "I’d never known of a woman to sell drugs, much less on that level. She was a billionaire."

Cosby himself was a small-time drug broker and was hoping to transfer up in that global. What higher method to do it then by way of a mentor like Blanco. When Cosby came upon a feminine good friend of his once served as a drug runner for the Cocaine Godmother, he was ready to get an creation. After numerous phone calls and letters, Cosby visited her in prison where she asked outright how much money he wanted to "make his family comfortable." Three days later, a woman delivered 50 kilos of cocaine to his home.

A month later he was a millionaire serving to Blanco keep her multi-billion buck drug industry afloat. Soon they had been in a relationship which concerned Blanco paying prison guards $1,500 so they may consummate their love. Sometime in 1995 Cosby was subpoenaed by way of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Too drained to combat to any extent further, he testified in Florida the place he low-balled how a lot Blanco was making. "I said she was making $2 million when it was actually 50 times that," he mentioned.

After suffering from a middle attack whilst in prison, Blanco was launched from prison and was deported again to Colombia in 2004. Robert Palombo, the DEA agent who arrested Blanco, didn't suppose she would last lengthy since such a lot of other people were occupied with killing her. Imagine his surprise when in 2007 he was sent a photo of her at the Bogotá airport. He attributed her survival to the passage of time and the "tons of money squirreled away in different bank accounts that were never recovered."

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