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(#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."
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(#2) Stephanie St. Clair
Known as Queenie or Madame St. Claire, Stephanie St. Claire started her own numbers racket in 1923 and was soon making over a quarter of a million a year - a substantial amount of money in those days.
Aside from partaking in the illegal activity of racketeering, St. Claire was very supportive of her community, regularly publishing newspaper ads to educate community members about their rights, agitate for voting rights, and arguing against police brutality, even getting corrupt cops fired. When the mob tried to move in on her uptown territory during the Depression, she had those sent to intimidate her "taken care of," then tipped off the police about mob businesses and had their storefronts attacked. She then took out newspaper ads bragging to the mob about what she'd done and daring them to stop her. In reference to her arch-rival, she said, “I’m not afraid of Dutch Schultz or any other man living. He’ll never touch me.”
When her nemesis Schultz was eventually assassinated with a shot in the stomach, she promptly sent a telegraph to his deathbed that read “So You Sow - So Shall Ye Reap," signed “Madam Queen of Policy.”
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(#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.
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(#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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(#5) Maria Licciardi
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Maria Licciardi became the "Boss of Bosses" when she took over Sister of Secondigliano Alliance (SA) following the death of her husband and brothers. Not limiting to herself to extortion and drug trafficking, Liccianrdi was one of the few females bosses that supported prostitution. And she was ruthless - her sex workers were often kept drugged and when they were no longer making money, were killed.
Though she occasionally gave back to the community, when an ally and partner, the La Russo Clan, sold heroin so pure and potent it killed customers, Licciardi started to get the wrong kind of attention. The two groups turned on each other and over 120 people died in car bombings, shootings, and other violence.
Fearing investigations, she had the district attorney's office bombed, however, that didn't stop them from eventually imprisoning her. She is thought to still be running the business from behind bars.
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(#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.
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(#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.
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(#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.
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(#9) Raffaela D’Alterio
"The Big Female Kitten" may not sound like an intimidating nickname, but Raffaela D'Alterio was part of a drug cartel. This mafia godmother took over the Pianese-D'Alterio clan after her husband was gunned down - and she took her share of bullets from rivals just a few years later, but survived.
Her family has been known for heading up a lucrative drug cartel and using violence and intimidation. She was arrested in 2012 for extortion, illegal weapons, robbery, and drugs.
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(#10) Thelma Wright
A Catholic school girl who turned to the dark side and then eventually straightened out again, Thelma Wright has a rollercoaster story. She married a heroin supplier, Jackie Wright, who had ties to Philadelphia's Black Mafia. When he ended up with a bullet in his head (and wrapped in a rug), Thelma stepped up her game and earned herself the nickname "Boss Lady."
At the height of her heroin and coke empire, she was thought to take in $400,000 a month. But she eventually left the business behind and worked as a motivational speaker, warning people to stay away from drugs.
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(#11) Kathleen Pettingill
Kathleen Pettingill, known as "The Matriarch," was the mother of an Australian crime family.
Involved in drug trafficking, arms dealing, and once a sex workers herself, she ran brothels and two of her sons have murder convictions under their belts. She was once even shot in a scuffle and now has a glass eye.
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(#12) Pearl Elliot
Though she was linked to big names like John Dillinger and Harry Pierpont, this madam stood on her own two feet. Born in 1887, Pearl Elliot ran a number of her own enterprises in the early part of the 20th century, including a brothel in Kokomo, IN, that had its own security.
Working as a "treasurer" for Dillinger, she risked being taken out by his enemies and allowed her brothel to be used as a hideout for bank robbers. She died in 1935 at 47 years old - from illness, not crime.
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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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