In the early 1970s, criminal mastermind Griselda Blanco and her drug-smuggling lover, Alberto Bravo, were poised to take the United States by storm.

Griselda had flitted in and out of the US for years, coming and going using a host of fake identities. But now it was time to fully commit. She and her husband moved their headquarters from Medellin, Colombia to the Big Apple, setting up shop in Queens.

Griselda already had a network of Colombian criminals operating within the United States - from her people-smuggling days. This was a ready-made drug distribution network. But first things first, she needed a supply chain.

Alberto Bravo oversaw the purchase of cocaine in Bolivia and Peru. It was straightforward enough to transport it into Colombia. The borders were virtually unguarded. The drugs got re-packaged in Blanco’s hometown of Medellin. Kilo upon kilo of Bolivian marching powder was good to go.

Now Griselda needed to come up with a way to import the product into the US in mass quantities. As a woman in a “man’s world”, her masterstroke was to devise a new way of smuggling cocaine – stashed where no one would think to look.

Elaine Carey is an historian and expert on Griselda’s life. She features in Real Narcos:

“They were the right people at the right time with the right product… It wasn’t just coming in on people’s bodies. It was also coming in false bags, suitcases and dog crates. There were a lot of different ways… But they were also creating garments that would facilitate this, such as specialised brassieres and girdles and things like that… where they could actually enhance the female figure… These garments would allow for the drugs to be more smoothed around the body and it would just look like a woman’s natural figure.”

The drugs were stashed front and centre – right where the border guards’ eyes were immediately drawn. That was the genius of it.

Griselda carefully selected Colombian women she could trust as her mules. She trained them to flaunt their sexuality. They dressed attractively, flirting their way through customs and immigration, any suspicions dispelled by a seductive smile.

The smugglers were free to waltz straight onto flights bound for the US. Each bra could hold a kilo of coke. Ten thousand dollars in net profit. Five and a half hours later, they touched down in New York, where Griselda’s network of underground distributors lay waiting. Within hours, the drugs hit the streets of Manhattan.

Subscribe to Real Narcos to learn how DEA agents and police officers pieced together the jigsaw of clues, to eventually track down the Godmother.

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