The Official Charles Cosby Website

Cocaine Cowboys
Interview with Charles Cosby
Interview by Allen S. Gordon

Continued from Murder Dog volume 15 #1

How did you manage to keep your ego in check running with Griselda Blanco and having ridiculous amounts of wealth? That is just something young niggas can’t avoid. They have to floss and flaunt their wealth in the drug game.

Guys buy cars and heavy jewelry just to impress the bitches. I had no desire to do that. Don’t get me wrong, I had fly cars and a few women earlier as a street dealer, but when I got with Griselda it was all business for me, and I was not doing anything that would get me caught up.

Excuse me for asking this question if it seems to personal, but being in your 20s, how did you muster the gumption to carry on a sexual relationship with Griselda Blanco. She was old, in her 50s, and was no Dianne Carroll or Nancy Wilson.

I started out writing her love letters. I wanted to massage her ego and open her heart to love. That’s how I started out and once I did that I had to stay on that course. And of course as the story goes she fell deeply in love with me. And she opened up a whole new world to me, so naturally I loved her to a great degree or extent. I wasn’t really surprised, my people around me were surprised. But I’ve always been adventurous and if I put my mind to I can do it. Making love to Griselda, there was no difficulty or problems. She was beautiful for what she did for me.

The way you handle things and your demeanor, money didn’t change you at all, did it?

Whether I have $10 in my pocket of $10 million I haven’t changed. I’ll never change who I am. I am the same old Charles Cosby. The same nigga from the block. What you have to understand is that money is a good slave, but a bad master. You can never let money control you. At the end of the day if you don’t have a good family structure or good friends around you what do you have? So I always kept it real with myself if not anybody else. I never allowed money to change me. I’ve always had money. I’ve had $50,000 to $100,000 when I was 20 years old so when the tens of millions started pouring in I was able to maintain who I was and hold on to the same principles, same character, and same personality.

Funny thing is, as long as you have maintained your personal guidelines you never became a dope dealing celebrity. What kept you from falling into the nigga trap?

Common sense! I did have the big house and the Ferrari’s, and even now I’ve done well for myself. But if you know you are making your money in an illegal business and you go out a buy a $100,000 car that’s like telling the police “FUCK YOU! I’m a dope dealer and can spend my money any way I want.” That’s what invites unwanted trouble. If you are making that type of money, you don’t want to be on front street. You need to be in the background. It’s good to buy automobiles but you don’t have to flash your wealth, especially when it is illegal. After I hooked up with Griselda Blanco, if anybody saw me I was just getting into town or leaving town. I was traveling all over the world so if anybody had a problem with me or harbored any jealousy I had guys who could take care of that for me. Again, that goes back to me living a low profile life. When I had my Ferrari I didn’t parade through Oakland. That was my Los Angeles car.

After watching “Cocaine Cowboys I”, I had to ask you why tell your story now? I mean every former dope dealer in the country is being interviewed in FEDS or Don Diva magazine or doing a DVD like they want to take their place in the pantheon or dope dealer hall of fame. Why now?

The thing of it is, people have been asking me to tell this story for years but I couldn’t because of the statuette of limitations. Now that the statuette of limitations has passed I am able to tell my story. All so-called cocaine kingpins doing time in the feds, whoever they may be, they all have a story to tell. But their story or no hood story will ever rival my story. Period. I don’t care who it is: the niggas who ran Oakland, the nigga who ran San Francisco or even Rick Ross. Rick Ross couldn’t stand beside my money at my peak. So everybody has a story to tell, but not all stories are bankable like mine. I actually wrote a book called “Hustling with the Godmother: The Story of Charles Cosby”. It’s 200 pages and basically traces my life growing up in Brookfield Village as well as Griselda’s life growing up in Columbia. Then it goes to when we met, to the millions of dollars we made together, to her eventual indictment for three capitol murders in Miami.

For those readers who haven’t seen the bonus footage on “Cocaine Cowboys I”, give us some background on yourself.

I was raised in small community in East Oakland, which is known as Brookfield. It’s on 98th Ave. I was a regular kid that came from a regular family raised by a single parent. I was a decent kid in school. I got decent grades, but like most kids I was mischievous at that age. I went through my junior high school years focused on being a lawyer. That was my dream, to be a lawyer. Once I reached high school the crack cocaine epidemic started spreading through Black communities across the nation and I got caught up in that. I became a street dealer in 1984.

What drew you into the drug business? This is the time when the drug game in Oakland changed hands from organized crime to d-boys inheriting the game.

At that time all my personal friends were selling drugs and buying cars, and I wanted to have some money and buy myself a car. And I wanted some females, so I followed suit. At that time they were no major street dealers, everybody was just small-time pushers. If you had a connection you was lucky enough to have that connect. There was Felix Mitchell and the 69 Mob, then there was everybody else at that time. If there were any other kingpins or so-called kingpins in this city, they were far and few in between. Most everybody was just selling rocks in 1984 and I was a rock seller.

When crack hit the scene it replaced heroin rather quickly as the drug of choice.

Actually, about the time I got into crack dealing it was new for everybody, including the older dudes. Crack really showed up in the spring or summer of 1983. The birth of crack cocaine is 1980, but as far as saturating the Black community it was the summer of 1983. All of us, young guys and old guys, basically stumbled into the crack dealing together, at the same time. We were all introduced to it around the same time. The older dealers were heroin dealers before. As far as crack goes, the arrival of it was a brand new phenomenon for all of us.

How did it spread so fast and how did it quadruple the number of drug users from the days of heroin?

It was crazy to see, but we didn’t really trip off it like that back then. Statistics didn’t mean anything to us and there wasn’t any type of measuring stick for that info anyway. I mean crack cocaine exploded everywhere all at once. It didn’t matter if you lived in Brookfield, Sobrante Park, The Village or Funktown; it hit everywhere at once. It seemed like it was the same day damn near. It was all over the same city, the same neighborhoods at the same time. News don’t even travel that fast. So, the money back then was crazy. An ounce of pure cocaine back then was $2,000 an ounce, but you would make about five to six thousand dollars back off of that.

I was 13 years old and lived in Funktown, so I didn’t know squat about Brookfield outside of the park. Did Brookfield have the game jumping like that or did you branch out to different neighborhoods to sell?

Actually, we did this in Brookfield Village alone. There was tens of thousands of dollars in our neighborhood alone. It was spread out among a dozen or so street dealers and I happen to be one of them.

No violence or competitive wars?

No. This is 1984 and that type of neighborhood against neighborhood street violence hadn’t really happened escalated at the time. We were just young guys making money and enjoying it. In Brookfield, we weren’t an organized unit or anything. Actually, we were all dealers but we were separate, ya dig. We come from the same bricks, but we were all separate dealers. There was enough money for all of us. We might have one guy on this corner and another a block or two away, but there was no confrontations. There was enough to go around.

Being a Black American, what kind of hostility did you get from the Columbians who were with Griselda before you came on board?

The thing is I was making all of these bi-coastal trips from the West Coast to the East. You have to keep in mind that Griselda had an organization and a system in place that included people that had been with her since she was in Queens, NY in the late 1970s. So you can imagine there were a lot of works who harbored bad feelings towards me because they had been with her for years and now she had me executing her duties. They castigated and vilified me in private to Griselda and she made a conference call to basically put everybody in check. Her people never really fully accepted me. Of course her youngest son Michael Corleone fully accepted me as did her other son Oswaldo. Oswaldo was killed by Pablo Escobar. Griselda’s people, they didn’t cause me any significant problem because Griselda was the brains of the operation and they were just the manpower. Workers. They were responsible for getting the dope from Columbia to Miami or San Francisco or wherever. But she was the brains, so whatever she said was the last word on the subject.

Have you been to Columbia and rubbed elbows with people in the home of cocaine?

Yeah, Columbia. I went to Medellin many times with Griselda’s son Michael or for meetings with El Negro and Ubert in these big ass Haciendas with 25,000 square feet and cows roaming the land.

How small did African American drug dealers in Oakland seem to you after kicking it with the Columbians?

You have to understand that when you talk about cats from Medellin, Columbia or Cali, Columbia that is as high as organized crime can get as far as cocaine goes. To rub elbows with those type of cats and then come back to the states, everything else is meaningless. You see a Black guy flossing in a Corvette, I’m like so what nigga I got $20 million dollars sitting in my garage. So when you see Black dealers being celebrities it is meaningless.

Every ethnic group with a connection to drugs, be they Armenians, Ukraninans, Irish, Chinese or Italian, has had to use a Black American to sell to that community, which is where kingpins are made. Retail. But you were actually sitting near the top of a Columbian Cartel. There will never be another story like this.

My story, and I’m not trying to toot my own horn or anything, will never happen again. A thousand years from now you will never have a story quite like Charles Cosby and Griselda Blanco. This is a story for the ages. You will never have a Black American at the highest level of a Columbia cartel nor will you ever have another woman as the head of a Columbia cartel after Griselda.

How did the producers of “Cocaine Cowboys” convince you to sit down for an interview to tell your story?

Once I met the guys at Rancantor Films they flew me and my entire family out to Miami. When I went to South Beach I was comfortable with the two young guys doing the film. And I was impressed that they put $750,000 into producing that documentary, which was incredible in itself. Once we got down there I was able to shake their hands, look them in their eyes and see that they were real about their shit. So I was like “fuck it,” let’s climb this mountain together. We just finished “Cocaine Cowboys II”, which is basically two hours of me, Griselda Blanco and her hitman Rivi. Everyone seems to love Rivi from the first film. He was Griselda’s main assassin and killed over 40 people while working for her. We built the story around Griselda and then there are discussions with Rivi, homicide detectives and of course me. I’ve got about 80 minutes of time in the 2 hours of film.

In “Cocaine Cowboys I”, Griselda Blanco threatened to “Kill the whole Brookfield” if you didn’t come correct about an affair you were having. Oakland has never seen violence like what Columbians were doing in Miami. They are crazy blowing houses and shit like that.

In this business there is a saying that goes: “When a Columbian is after you, the world is too small a place to try and hide.” Make no mistake about it, Griselda Blanco is a very dangerous person. Probably the most dangerous person anyone could ever meet. She has killed about 200-300 people since she was 11 years old. She committed her first murder when she was 11 years old. By the time she was 14 she had committed four murders. She is a very dangerous individual, but at the same time she has a big heart as well. She was extremely generous and would give you the last dollar in her pocket. She would give you anything you ask for to put a smile on your face. That is what makes her happy.

Did she shower you with gifts for being her lover and a loyal CEO?

My gift was just by the money I made through Griselda. She definitely looked out for me by plugging me into the Cartel, so I didn’t need any gifts from her. Anything that I wanted I could purchase thanks to Griselda giving me an opportunity.

Griselda wanted to kidnap JFK, Jr. in order to get out of prison, how did you get wrapped up in that and are you okay with how you and Griselda ended up as a result of you backing away from her and this plot?

What ended up happening was that Rivi was looking at the death penalty for a number of murders and Griselda was a year or two from getting out of the Feds. So they made a deal with Rivi to spare his life if he offered up information on Griselda because they didn’t want her out of prison. That’s what got the ball rolling and she was being indicted again on new charges. As you can imagine she was distraught with her emotions. During the course of these events she became desperate and concocted a plan to kidnap JFK, Jr., former United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s son. The most popular president in American history. I told Griselda that this plan was not the way to go and if we have to we would spend $30 million dollars on a criminal defense. Plus, in court who is going to listen to a convicted murderer with 40 bodies on him? The JFK plot was foolish. She said that she did not want to go to court and “I have no more life to give to these people. I am guilty until convicted.” That’s what she told me. She was intent on kidnapping Kennedy. I didn’t want any part of that. I’m a motherfucking drug dealer. If I get caught selling drugs I’m going to stand tall and do my time whether it is two years or 20 years. I can accept that because I chose to sell drugs. But as far as the kidnapping, I didn’t want to be involved in that at all. I told Griselda Blanco that we could do this another way. We could fight for her freedom in another way. She didn’t want that.

What about when the Federal Government paid you a visit?

Of course the FEDS got involved and they got to talking shit about giving a nigga life and shit. I remember, I pleaded with Griselda that we could do this another way. So once the FEDS came at me I backed up as much as I could. I told them what my role in the operation was, because at the end of the day, my kids were what was important for me. So I walked away from a lot of money and sitting at the head of the table and a guaranteed $75 million in cash. That’s what I walked away from. Barring an arrest or something happening, I would have made that in a year if I hadn’t walked away. I also didn’t tell on the bitch or try to hurt her in a distressed state, I just didn’t want any part of the plot to kidnap Kennedy. If I was trying to hurt her I could, in 2007, go dig up bodies that belong to her. But that ain’t me. I didn’t want no parts of the plot.

Were you worried about a Colombian hit squad coming after you?

Without a doubt. For the years after that I lived my life in total secrecy because I know Griselda Blanco. I know how vindictive she can be if pushed. So I was living in secrecy, rich but unhappy. My family and I lived just below the radar. But now in 2007, Griselda has let bygones be bygones. In January of 2008, we are going to rekindle our friendship in Panama. A mutual friend was able to put it together so we are going to make it happen.

Are you going down with a security force, just in case?

No security. If something were to happen, I’ve lived my life and my family is set. I put everything in God’s hands. But to be truthful about Griselda, the bitch did a lot for me. I’m the type of dude that I believes in being loyal. I want to see what she has to say and what she is talking about these days.

How has your life changed since you came back on line in the public?

My life now is a lot slower. I have a beautiful wife and the best kids that any parent could hope for. I did what I did. I left the game and never looked back.

Lots of cats from Oakland or anywhere else have never known that type of peace of mind and spirit. It’s all the rah-rah, and less about the business. Too busy playing kingpin and not accepting the responsibility of being one.

You see, that excessive violence will kill you from the inside out. You don’t need a Rolls Royce, and because the nigga around the corner has one there is no need to kill him. That violence because of jealousy or an emotion will do you in. I never touched the drugs. I had a system of guys that managed all that for me. I rarely even saw drugs because I would never have drugs in my home where I sleep or on my own person. I never surrounded myself in the vicinity of drugs. I made sure that they go to where they were supposed to go and the money was what it needed to be. I had got into this business to make money, big money. Murder doesn’t bring money or prosperity. It brings more death, whether physical or spiritual. I never wanted to exercise power over another nigga. I wanted the power to make my dreams come true and my family’s dreams come true.

Thanks for sharing your story. If “American Gangster” on BET does a third season, they need to come see you.

If I had to give my opinion I would have to say I am the greatest crook in African American history, and one of the best in American history period. A lot of what I was able to accomplish had to do with brains and pure luck, but also relying on a lot of common sense. They were some smart ones out there don’t get me wrong. But you wouldn’t catch me hobnobbing with another hustler at a Players’ Ball or catch me on the town surrounded by 20 bitches. I don’t need a crew of my friends or a crew of strangers to hang around me to feel important. I’m important on my own.

http://www.murderdog.com/feb_2008/Cocaine_Cowboy_Charles_Cosby.htm

-= The Official Charles Cosby Site =-
Buy Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin With The Godmother Now!