(#1) Griselda Blanco
- Dec. at 69 (1943-2012)
Griselda Blanco, also known as "The Cocaine Godmother," grew up in the Colombian slums, working her way up the crime ladder, first as a sex worker and pickpocket. It didn't take her long to make her first kill - she was rumored to have committed her first murder at the age of 11. It was the first of many.
Blanco was thought to have run a coke ring that moved 3,400 pounds of product a month, but her murder rate was equally as prolific. Low estimates suggest that she was behind 40 to 50 murders, but some estimates go as high as 200. She was only convicted of three murders but spent 13 years in federal prison for drug charges.
Her lovers and husbands were often among her victims, thus, she was also nicknamed the "Black Widow."
(#6) Rosetta Cutolo
When former Camorra boss and Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO) head Raffaele Cutolo was incarcerated, it was up to his older sister, Rosetta, to take over the family business. She negotiated trade deals with cartels, was in charge of billions of dollars, and was rumored to have attempted to blow up a police station.
Though she successfully reigned for 15 years, a raid brought her down - she spent 12 years on the run before eventually being found by police. In the end, she served five years in prison.
(#7) Gertrude Lythgoe
Prohibition-era bootlegging may have been a man's game, but that didn't stop Gertrude Lythgoe, nicknamed "The Bahama Queen," from getting her share of the pie.
She had a wholesale liquor shop, large profits, and a ruthless way of dealing with competitors. When she found out a rival was badmouthing her booze, she kidnapped him and held a gun to his head to make sure he never did it again.
(#8) Ma Barker
- Dec. at 62 (1873-1935)
Being called "the most vicious, dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade" by J. Edgar Hoover is no small feat, but Ma Barker was just that. The mother of a string of criminals who committed highway robberies - and occasional murder - at the beginning of the 20th century, her role in the group has been debated, but many consider her the cold-blooded matriarch of this crime family.
Of her four sons (Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Fred), Herman took his life to avoid arrest, while the other three were arrested. But when Fred was released, he and Ma continued their criminal ways before they were both killed in an FBI shootout in 1935. With such a dramatic story, there's no surprise Ma has been featured in multiple movies and many criminal matriarch characters have been based on her real-life doings.
(#3) Marllory Dadiana Chacon Rossel
Guatemalan drug lord and "Queen of the South," Marllory Dadiana Chacon Rossel was eventually jailed after she surrendered. But that was only after an extensive life of crime.
Her organization supplied cocaine to Mexican drug cartels including Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel and laundered tens of millions of dollars a month. The US Treasury named her husband as an accomplice, but there was no denying that Rossel was the one in charge. Authorities classified her as “the most active money launderer in Guatemala” and as one of the most prolific drug traffickers in all of Central America.
She eventually surrendered and has been working with the DEA and the US Attorney's Office in Florida since 2012, providing information in exchange for the authorities agreeing to keep her sentence and release date secret for five years, to protect herself from rivals.
(#4) Charmaine Roman
Drug lord Charmaine Roman used a concert promotion business as a front for her illegal activity very successfully for a time. She was the head of a violent Jamaican drug ring, responsible for bringing thousands of pounds of marijuana into Florida. It took years of surveillance for the police to finally catch her with a 400-pound shipment, eventually seizing over 3,000 pounds of marijuana, $200,000, 15 guns, and several cars.
She was also found with various passports and ID cards with many different identities. Besides being a drug kingpin, she had a love of lottery scratch cards, reportedly winning almost $200,000.
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When it comes to criminal groups, many people think of gangster men with large tattoos. In the male-dominated crime industry, any female leader must have some advantages. Some dangerous, cruel, and wealthy female criminal lords are unexpectedly powerful. In many cases, most of the crime is related to the image of the old criminal gang. Most people would not think that a woman who can be a mother or wife can be a capable and violent crime lord.
The random tool introduced 12 famous and fatal female crime lords around the world, bloody gang wars, constant threats to family members, and police officers are all waiting to put these terrible women in jail.
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