ON A SUNNY afternoon in May 1984, Griselda Blanco walked through the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Newport Beach, California, unaware that she was being watched by investigators from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The infamous drug “godmother”, who headed a Colombian cartel bringing a staggering 1,5 tons of cocaine into the US each month, thought she was meeting a money launderer.
In fact, the meeting was part of a plan to snare the ruthless Griselda, then 41 and in hiding after death threats from rival drug cartels, who was believed to be responsible for up to 250 murders, including the assassinations of all three of her husbands.
“She was dressed in a blonde wig, a cape and matching dress and high heels but she was recognisable by the cleft chin and dimples we’d seen in photographs,” says Bob Palombo, the DEA agent who’d hunted her for more than a decade.
“We were euphoric because she was someone who was paranoid and constantly on the move and not a single law enforcement person in the United States had ever seen Griselda in person until that moment. My partner and I looked at each other and silently said: ‘Bingo!’”
‘SHE WAS HAPPY ABOUT THESE GREAT STARS OF HOLLYWOOD SHOWING INTEREST IN PLAYING HER’
Although Palombo and his fellow agent were so close to Griselda they could’ve grabbed her, they let their informant
