The Cocaine Queenpin: Griselda Blanco

 The Sweet Old Lady

For the most part, people think of drug dealing as a mans game, but this is not always true. Griselda Blanco was not only a Colombian cocaine kingpin but she was also one of the most nastiest, ruthless murder ordering drug dealers that Miami would ever see.

Originally from Medellin, Colombia, she came from an area where drug dealing was nothing new. She pushed more then 1,500kg through Miami a month netting over a billion dollars in her career. She mainly made her bones and made it to the by walking over all of her competition by murdering them, their family and any witnesses.

Blanco shot to kill to get to a position of power and never stopped. After leaving a murderous trail in Colombia she would head to Miami and would be held under suspicion for the responsibility of over 200 hundred murders. She had three sons, two of which was in the drug business with her acting as enforcers and a third son she tried to keep out of the dope business and protected him with all of her powers.

Eventually with the unwanted heat that Blanco was bringing down on the Colombia drug dealers because of her careless business dealings she would make many, many enemies. These enemies would come around and bite her in the ass when her two sons would get deported back to Colombia. Both sons would meet drug dealing justice by being shot dead before they even got off the tar mat.

After that drama, Blanco would not go into hiding but she did take her son and moved to California where the risk of violence to her and her son would be greatly decreased. Eventually she would final be brought to justice for trafficking charges, and while she sat in jail for those charges the U.S. department of justice would finally get a solid case on her on murder charges that included the death of a two-year-old boy. But unfourtanlly their soild witness would loss creditablity  and they would get a plea out of her that would put her in prison for only 10 years.






After nearly two decades behind bars, finally in 2004 she would be released and then be deported back to her drug ridden country where she had plenty of enemies. After three mysterious husbands died from murder and hundreds of other drug dealers and innocent people murdered under the order of her evil authority she would meet her own faith in the middle of a street in Colombia where she would be gunned down in the same fashion she has done to so many others.

One would have to believe that if the U.S. would have just deported her sooner the problem would have been solved a long time ago; Street Justice.

Gangster Flick: Once Upon a Time in America

When people are asked what are some of the best crime movies ever made, the oblivious movies come to mind; The Godfather, Scareface, Good Fellas, etc. But there are plenty of gangster flicks that slipped through the cracks that could be considered some of the best.

Here is one of my favorite under-rated gangster flicks.  

Once Upon a Time in America

A great movie about a rough Jewish town in New York and a couple of young men turn thieves in a small neighborhood. Eventually, the men would form a gang and become successful in the underworld, mostly involved in the sale of illegal alcohol sales. But before, after and during their success the crew would endue troubles and tragedy, and their success would eventually be halted with the end of prohibition.

The movie flashes back and fast-forwards through the 1920's - 1960's. Robert De Niro, who plays the gangster "Noddles" comes back to his old town for a mysterious reason and while he's back recaps the ups and downs of the life of his fellow friends and gang member's and his own.  

With great characters such as Robert De Niro and James wood, the movie takes a realistic look at how things were back in those days in rough Jewish neighborhoods, and in some cases a little more factually correct then some of the other more popular gangster flicks.

Four Successful Bosses of the Underworld

Here are four mobsters you may of never heard of, but that's probably because that's the way they wanted it. Strong and quiet bosses run strong and quiet criminal organizations.

Semion Mogilevich

One of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives, Semion Mogilevich cuts a frightening figure. Called the "Brainy Don" (he has an economics degree), the Ukrainian-born mobster's gang has a multinational reach, with his hands allegedly in everything from a Pennsylvania-based company that defrauded investors of $150 million to the East European gas trade. His other reputed crimes include murders, arms dealing and drug trafficking. Mogilevich was arrested in Moscow in 2008 for tax evasion, but, brainy and crafty as he is, was released the following year.

Hisayuki Machii

 The Korean-born mobster got his start in the Japanese underworld after settling in Tokyo following World War II. Hisayuki Machii became a regular fixture in the black market and made his name in everything from tourism and prostitution to oil importing. He founded the Tosei-kai gang, which reached its height in the 1960s. The organization allowed Machii to become an essential fixer between Japan and South Korea. His exploits eventually made it possible for him to acquire a ferry service that connected Japan and South Korea along the shortest distance between the two countries. The gang was later disbanded, but Machii followed that up by forming two front organizations, Toa Yuai Jigyo Kumiai and Toa Sogo Kigyo. Machii retired in the 1980s, virtually unscathed by the law, and died in 2002.








Salvatore Riina

"Gentleman, you are making a big mistake," is what Sicilian mobster Salvatore Riina told police when he was apprehended in January 1993 for his dark deeds over more than 20 years as a fugitive and operative in the Sicilian Mafia. He was wanted for his connection to more than 100 killings perpetrated during his climb to the top of the organized-crime gang. Riina, also known as "Toto," was said to have started his career as a hit man. He went into hiding in 1969 after being acquitted of triple homicide. But that didn't stop him from allegedly orchestrating the bloody Mafia wars in 1980s Sicily, which claimed dozens of lives and sealed his post at the top of the organization. In October 1993, despite his attempt to claim a case of mistaken identity, Riina was sentenced to life in prison, the harshest punishment allowed in Italy.

 

 

Dawood Ibrahim

  Mustachioed and portly, it's hard to imagine that Dawood Ibrahim is one of the most dangerous people in the world. Long heralded as the don of the Mumbai underworld, the shadowy Ibrahim went from being a classic extortionist huckster and gold smuggler in the Indian seaside metropolis to a man now implicated in a ring of global terrorist networks that include ties to al-Qaeda. Ibrahim is suspected as a potential suspect in masterminding a 1993 terror attack in Mumbai, which killed hundreds, and may have had a hand in the 2008 attacks on a number of prominent, ritzy Mumbai hotels. What adds to his mystique is that his whereabouts remain unknown — Indian intelligence officials suspect he is in Pakistan, possibly in the port city of Karachi, but the Pakistanis reject those claims. Some estimates of his wealth number into billions of dollars, tracing him to assets and properties from Malaysia to East Africa. In 2008, Forbes ranked him among the top 10 most wanted fugitives; the following year, Ibrahim made the magazine's list of the world's most powerful people.

Vincent Gigante

 "THE CHIN"

The last true MAFIA Boss. Avoided prison time for decades with his claim of legal insanity, even avoided it better then the infamous Gotti, before finally making a deal with prosecutors to help his family. Prosecutors used "The Chin's" family for leverage and threatened them with prison time unless he would admit his craziness was nothing more than a sham. 
http://www.cafepress.com/Are_you_Connected
 

Why is the Italian mob the most popular and the most recognized in the world?

The answer is easy: Character and Success

 http://www.cafepress.com/Are_you_Connected

James Gandolfini: Tony Soprano

                                                  

                           This is a Business

                        Not a Popularity Contest
                                           http://www.cafepress.com/Are_you_Connected

Mafia

                                                 Family Ties

                                                           Are You Connected

James "Whitey" Bulger

                                             
                                                                

It has been announced that Johnny Depp  will be playing the role of Whitey Bulger, the notorious Boston gangster.

Depp has already stared in successful organized crime movies.

Blow:  as George Jung- The "Boston Boy" cocaine dealer. An awesome true story about an ambitious young man who rose to the top of the cocaine demand chain before eventually being sent away to prison.

Donnie Brasco:   The true story of an undercover FBI agent who would eventually infiltrate the mob and bring down more mobsters in one operation then any other undercover operation.

Public Enemies:  Depp, plays John Dillinger as the infamous bank robber. Public Enemy Number One. Not quite the mob but still on the other side of the law.