Charles Cosby: Cocaine Cowboy’s Griselda Blanco’s Million Dollar Man
Every so often a criminal persona will have a street reputation so grand; it will become permanently fixated into popular culture. From Al Capone and his cigar, the Son of Sam’s grim mystique all the way up to John Gotti’s Teflon disposure. In 2006 a new outlaw would be etched in our hearts via the cult classic documentary Cocaine Cowboys.
The film chronicled the insane drug trafficking flowing throughout Miami in the 1970’s and 1980’s. At the center of all the money, murder, and kidnapping was Griselda Blanco. Also known as “The Godmother”, Blanco was a pioneer in the cocaine trade due to her amassed fortune and ruthless ambition to stay at top.
While Cocaine Cowboys detailed her rise to infamy, her entire story was not told. Now with the recent release of the much awaited sequel Cocaine Cowboys 2, her story continues in California. Albeit being incarcerated, Blanco still ran a multi million dollar drug operation behind bars with the assistance of Charles Cosby. A dealer himself, Cosby would link with Griselda and make street history. In an exclusive, AllHipHop.com speaks to The Godmother’s multi million dollar man.
Point blank his story will make your favorite rapper’s favorite hustler look like a chump. Who else but us?
AllHipHop.com: Cocaine Cowboys 2 just dropped. Can you give the readers who haven’t seen the movie some background information on you? Let’s start when you were coming up in the drug game in the west coast.
Charles Cosby: Okay I grew up in Oakland California in a little community called Brookfield Village. In contrary to what it may sound like, it’s not a [housing] project. It was a single family home neighborhood. I was like any other kid growing up in the hood you know hanging out and then the crack cocaine epidemic hit Brookfield in 1983, 1984. So all my friends around me were involved in that and I soon became apart of the fast life as well.
AllHipHop.com: So you started hustling?
Charles Cosby: I started hustling right at sixteen years old. You know everybody was doing it. That was the new thing sweeping across the ghettos of the United States of America. I was like everybody else, I wanted to be apart of it.
AllHipHop.com: As I hear you are doing well for yourself in the drug game and become aware of “The Godmother” Griselda Blanco.
Charles Cosby: I originally heard of Griselda Blanco February 1985 when she was arrested in Southern California. That’s the first time I was aware of Griselda Blanco. I didn’t make contact with her until six years later.
AllHipHop.com: Everyone knows you wrote her a letter while she was incarnated, but not many people know you actually were introduced to Griselda through one of her associates first correct?
Charles Cosby: Correct. I was at a relatives house I met a Panamanian lady named Manuella. She once worked for Griselda Blanco in New York and also in Miami. So she had an in road to Griselda. That’s how I originally made contact.
AllHipHop.com: So it was the type of thing where she told Griselda “I know of a gentleman that would be interested in speaking to you”; basically cosigning you correct?
Charles Cosby: Correct. She got in contact with Griselda. She said “I met this Black guy in Los Angeles, he’s originally from the Bay area and he wanted to make contact with you. I just want to let you know he respects you and wants to meet you; for no other reason that he has love for you.” So Griselda was expecting to hear from me. When she did hear from me she called me in the next couple of days. She was careful, like what is up with the sudden interest. Am I trying to make contact to ask her for money or what not?
AllHipHop.com: She was doing federal time in northern California correct?
Charles Cosby: Yes.
AllHipHop.com: I’ve asked around with individuals familiar with that fast life. Columbians generally don’t associate with people of color, namely African Americans. How did you break that wall with her?
Charles Cosby: Yeah, they don’t f*** with Black people. They don’t even f*** with dark skinned Columbians. In their eyes light skin is superior and dark skin is inferior. She wasn’t hesitant in dealing with me the way I addressed her…I said an earful. So she couldn’t do anything but respect what I had to say. It was a hell of a beginning. She respected me; I respected her for allowing me the honor.
AllHipHop.com: When did Griselda get out of prison?
Charles Cosby: Griselda didn’t get out until 2004. She did nineteen years.
AllHipHop.com: So you were running her entire operation while she was locked in?
Charles Cosby: Yeah, while she was locked in jail. Even before she was in prison, she earned up to a billion dollars a year, with a b. Once she went to federal prison, a lot of her income dropped off but still she was at fifty million behind the walls which is incredible.
AllHipHop.com: So detail how everything starts rolling where you’re her go to guy. Do you just take the ball and run with it or was it a situation of back and forth conversations where she outlined how she wanted her business dealt?
Charles Cosby: Well when I made contact with Griselda Blanco, I wasn’t allowed to visit her because I was on probation at the time in 91. Federal rules prohibited me from fraternizing with her in person. So after nine to ten months, we established a strong relationship throughout the course of phone calls and letters. Once I was able to go see her all those months later, it was like going to meet my friend who I haven’t seen in years because that’s the type of relationship we had established. The very first visit she agreed to give me fifty kilograms of cocaine and a hundred kilograms in the next month or so. You know selling fifty kilograms in three to four weeks was two million dollars.
AllHipHop.com: From that point you couldn’t turn away.
Charles Cosby: Well I didn’t want to turn away. The money was good. Up until that point, I met Griselda I was just a street dealer. A few crack houses here and there, but my income was limited. A couple of thousand dollars every couple of days or what ever it may have been. There was no way without The Godmother I would have reached the level that I eventually reached.
AllHipHop.com: So how was the operation run with her on the inside and you on the outside?
Charles Cosby: Well the thing is Columbians are at the top of the food chain. That’s the end all be all supply. They have real power, unlike these American Gangsters Columbian motherf***ers have real power. So if they go to jail or even if they die, the operation is still going to run regardless. So with her being in federal prison, from drug trafficking she still has subordinates in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco who were still on the street doing their thing. But when I came on board she became so fond of me, her love grew so much for me she appointed me to run her entire organization. Which means the people that have been with her fifteen years on her payroll, they were forced to take orders from me; if they wanted to talk to The Godmother, they would have to go through me in order to reach her. It fractured a lot of egos. It created a lot of animosity towards me. First I was Black but then I subsequently became their boss. So I had two strikes against me.
AllHipHop.com: Once you were appointed the top position in her organization, did you start fearing for your life?
Charles Cosby: I didn’t fear for my life not once because it was an adventure. Know what I mean and I’m an adventurist. Everyday was fun, everyday was a new challenge. I’m from the hood; my income was limited before I met Griselda. After that I became a multi millionaire in a relatively short time. That was fun, it was intoxicating within itself.
AllHipHop.com: So this is the powder thing?
Charles Cosby: Yeah I got it in bricks and that’s how I sold them.
AllHipHop.com: So you didn’t have a team on street, you were more of a wholesaler correct?
Charles Cosby: Well I was the supplier that supplied the wholesalers.
AllHipHop.com: How much you were letting the bricks go for back then?
Charles Cosby: Well it was over a five year span, so it was going anywhere from the high twenty eights to the low twenty’s.
AllHipHop.com: Straight?
Charles Cosby: That was probably ninety five percent pure cocaine.
AllHipHop.com: So your millions start to come in. Paint the picture of the life of luxury you lived immediately after coming into the big money.
Charles Cosby: At my peak, I mean purchased a five thousand square foot home in Oakland Hills which overlooked the entire city. You can see as far as San Francisco from my bedroom window. In fact in Cocaine Cowboys 2 you’ll see a clip where I’m standing to the left of my home and I’m overlooking the city. It’s a beautiful shot. I had a Ferrari 512. Although The Godmother tried to curtail my spending, she always said high end spending would do me in which I found out later to be true. She didn’t want me to buy high end merchandise but I would go behind her back and do it anyway. It was dream to me that came true.
AllHipHop.com: During your time as top dog in the drug game, did you ever have deals with the original “Freeway” Rick Ross?
Charles Cosby: When I actually got with The Godmother, he was already incarcerated. Coincidentally, she was Rick Ross’ supplier at one time before she was arrested in Los Angeles. Yeah I would hear the names Rick Ross, ALPO, Supreme, a few other guys, Fat Cat, whoever. But the thing of it is I’m going to tell you a thing most people don’t know. Those dudes didn’t do the numbers that have been said. That’s not possible. It’s not possible for someone in the hood to make three million dollars in a day.
So when you hear those numbers about what Rick Ross did, that’s just not true. Columbians make three million in a day. Not no dude on the block, I don’t give a f*** who he is, how big he is, or how big his name was, he didn’t make three million dollars a day. Same thing for Alpo and Supreme; these dudes were breaded out but not to the extent that has been portrayed on American Gangster or sh*t like that. They probably had three or four million that they can touch, but at my peak I could touch twenty million dollars easy! That’s the difference.
AllHipHop.com: How about Rayful Edmonds from DC?
Charles Cosby: Oh Rayful Edmonds was the real deal. He actually f***d with Griselda’s kids when she was in federal prison, he was dealing with her and her family which is documented on different television outlets but I knew that story fifteen years ago about Rayful. Rayful is the real deal. If I would have to tip my hat to anyone of them, it would be Rayful. Because he a real dude. I know the numbers he did because Griselda told me from her own mouth.
AllHipHop.com: How about Michael Fray. He was from DC and was supposedly getting it too.
Charles Cosby: I never heard of him.
AllHipHop.com: And the Chambers Brothers from Detroit?
Charles Cosby: Those cats they did well. They did a million a week or whatever it might have been. This is what I know and this me who was on the inside. At her peak, Griselda made three million dollars a day which equates to roughly a billion dollars a year. She was the biggest of the big and she controlled the majority of the supply. So how is a cat from the hood going to generate three million a day? It isn’t possible.
AllHipHop.com: I want you to shed some light on the inner works of the Columbian cocaine cartels. The general population believed Pablo Escobar was the man. When Cocaine Cowboys hit it put the focus on the Ochoa Brothers. What’s your take on that?
Charles Cosby: Well I’m going to give you a complete breakdown, this is the real deal. Griselda Blanco was the first Columbian drug lord in the United States of America. This is just not me saying it, the records say this. She was the first one. By the time 1975 came around, Griselda had five hundred million dollars in cash; that’s what she was worth. That’s before Escobar was even a drug dealer. Escobar was stealing cars just to make ends meat. Griselda Blanco was the one who gave Pablo Escobar his start and he was loyal to her for a number of years. As far as the Ochoas, they came into the game in the later years in ’78 and ’79.
By that time she had become a billionaire, she had become the first cocaine billionaire in the world. But years later in the early 1980’s, Pablo Escobar, The Ochoas, Carlos Lehder and [José Gonzalo] Rodríguez Gacha, their money and power eventually surpassed Griselda’s. They became mightier then The Godmother. They were more like a coalition; they worked hand and hand.
AllHipHop.com: If she was sitting on all that cash where did she keep it at? Did she have it in different stash houses?
Charles Cosby: Well it goes to stash houses before it goes across the water. Which usually ends up at the Bank Of Columbia which is our Bank Of America. It could go to Panama or the Cayman Islands or wherever during that period.
AllHipHop.com: Have you ever seen the autobiographical movie on “Boston” George Jung Blow?
Charles Cosby: Yeah I have. But let’s go back to the numbers being inflated because years ago George Jung gave an interview and they asked him how much money did you make and loose? So he said during my time of drug dealing with the cartel and Carlos Lehder I made and lost a ten million dollar fortune. So fast forward to years later his book came out before the movie. BLOW: How a Small-Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All. It inflated his numbers ten times.
AllHipHop.com: I bring up the Boston George because I wanted to check in with you on how prevalent it was with people taking their earnings to Manuel Noriega’s banks in Panama.
Charles Cosby: Well Noriega was a king of drug dealers as well. He was actually in big with the cartels, Pablo Escobar, The Ochoas. When those guys got in trouble with the Columbian government they fled to Panama; Noriega put them up in Panama for a fee. They became large amounts of money into Panamanian accounts which subsequently Noriega ended up taking their money when they fled back to Columbia. So there was nothing they can do about it.
AllHipHop.com: During your run did you ever go to Columbia yourself?
Charles Cosby: I’ve been having a passport for the last eighteen years so I took trips to Columbia as well as Panama and other countries where it was for pleasure. Every time I went to Columbia it was business. I went to the jungles where they have the actual laboratories maybe twenty miles into the jungle. The only way you can get there is by horseback.
AllHipHop.com: It must have been a surreal sight to see workers with shirts covering their mouths mixing the product up?
Charles Cosby: I would say it was surreal but it just let me see what a position I was in. A cat from the hood has no idea how the process goes into bringing cocaine from the coca leaf into the hood. And I actually saw these people stepping on leaves and eating them twenty miles in the middle of a dense jungle. They go for thirty six hours straight, no sleep or nothing. The way they are able to manage is they take the coco leaf and put it in their jaw; it keeps them going.
AllHipHop.com: It’s like caffeine in coffee.
Charles Cosby: Exactly.
AllHipHop.com: Since you were Black and you were dating The Godmother, did you feel any tension towards you when you visited Columbia?
Charles Cosby: I felt tension from day one I started dealing with The Godmother but you must understand, The Godmother she is a person of last resort. Whatever she says goes. So regardless what they felt about me, they know I’m The Godmother’s right hand. A punch against me was a punch against her. So they weren’t going to cross the line regardless of how they felt. She brought me in so they would have hell to pay.
AllHipHop.com: They rolled out the red carpet for you?
Charles Cosby: Without a doubt as much as they hated to do it, they had no choice.
AllHipHop.com: So you were dealing with the Ochoas during your visits to Columbia?
Charles Cosby: I was dealing with the Griselda’s people. She had people she would deal with exclusively. She fell out with the Ochoas many years ago.
AllHipHop.com: When did the moral guilt hit you about what you were doing to the urban communities?
Charles Cosby: That was some years later. This is post Griselda Blanco. This is after the relationship dissolved. I really sat down and thought about the effects of my so called entrepreneurship. Although I wasn’t selling directly to the streets, I had a hand in that sh*t.
AllHipHop.com: At your peak how much money were you seeing?
Charles Cosby: At my peak I probably had twenty five million dollars.
AllHipHop.com: Never getting high off your own supply was a cliché statement with in the game during your run. Did you ever touch the stuff?
Charles Cosby: Until this day I’m forty years old I have never tasted alcohol, I never smoked a cigarette. I never smoked a joint. I never snorted cocaine. I’ve been drug free my entire life. Some say you can never say never, I will never get high period and this is a forty year old man saying this sh*t.
AllHipHop.com: When does the relationship with Griselda start to deteriorate?
Charles Cosby: Griselda was scheduled to get out of federal prison in the mid 90’s like ’96. It was a guy named Rivi [Jorge 'Rivi' Ayala] her main hit man; he killed forty or fifty people. So Griselda is about to get out of jail, and the authorities don’t want her to get out of jail because they think she is a very dangerous person. So Rivi approaches the prosecution’s office and said “okay well Godmother is about to get out of prison and I have information on various murders I committed for Godmother, can you give me some type of deal?” So they gave Rivi a deal.
AllHipHop.com: So he snitched on Griselda?
Charles Cosby: Yeah, he snitched on Griselda. They indicted her for first degree murders which were death penalty charges. Of course she went through a wide range of emotions during that time. So she an idea of kidnapping John Kennedy Junior in New York, holding him for ransom until she is released, they going to hold his ass. When she is released and flown to Columbia the kidnappers would release him. So of course FBI got wind of it of her hair brained scheme. FBI kicked my door down but the thing of it is, I told Griselda from the start she mentioned the idea to me and I was against it. I told her I’m a drug dealer and don’t force me to something I don’t want to do.
So she said, “If you’re not with me, then you must be against me Charles.” I said I’m not against you, but at the same time there are other ways to go about this. You’re a billionaire; let’s spend millions on your defense. We can body slam Rivi in court, who is going to believe a convicted killer who is fighting to get a deal? Griselda is very stubborn so she is going to do things her way. That’s what basically dissolved the relationship.
AllHipHop.com: How did the FBI know that you were her guy to kick your door down?
Charles Cosby: Well most phone calls in federal prisons are recorded. So Griselda and I were on the phone and I asked her something on the Kennedy plan and she readily admitted it on the phone and of course they heard what we were talking about. The FBI alerted Kennedy’s family and that’s how they were able to come to my house.
AllHipHop.com: Can I ask you something man to man?
Charles Cosby: Oh yeah.
AllHipHop.com: Obviously Griselda was older than you.
Charles Cosby: That’s right.
AllHipHop.com: Where you genuinely physically attracted to her? Or was it more the allure of whom she was.
Charles Cosby: At the beginning it was the allure, this larger than life person, this Godmother of cocaine. But when I met Griselda Blanco, I got a chance to sit down and talk to her in person. Aside from that Griselda Blanco was a really beautiful person. Pretty eyes, nice round face like a doll, deep dimples; Griselda was not an ugly woman, she was beautiful. I eventually fell in love with Griselda Blanco. I didn’t plan it out, it just did.
AllHipHop.com: After your refusal to take part in the Kennedy kidnapping everything with Griselda stops.
Charles Cosby: After they kicked my door down, the relationship dissolved. At that time I was on probation for a machine gun conviction; I got caught with a Mac 10 in my car I got subpoenaed from the Florida County General’s Office. As much as I didn’t want to go I had to. I wasn’t going to give them anything relevant because what good would it do me to send Griselda who is already distressed. I had already walked away from the game at that point. So I wasn’t looking back. I wasn’t going to sh*t on this woman even though we didn’t see eye to eye anymore, she did a hell of a lot for me. So I still had respect for her. I wasn’t going to be the n****r who sat on the witness stand and put her in the joint for life. I let Rivi do some sh*t like that. I would have damn near gave my life to prevent any harm to come her way and she knew that. This lady is a billionaire, with a b. Her story you will never see again, and I was just honored to be apart of it.
AllHipHop.com: So you stopped running her operation.
Charles Cosby: I stopped running it around ’97. The money was still good but I had become unhappy at that point. The money didn’t matter because all the sh*t people say if they were millionaire I wouldn’t have any problems. The thing is I’ve been there. I’ve been a millionaire many times over. So if you a jealous n****r, hiding behind bushes and sh*t, you going to be the same n****r when you get money. Ain’t sh*t going to change. Money only allows you a bigger house, more expensive house. Money can’t make every wish and dream come true. I learned that from first hand experience.
AllHipHop.com: With all the money you made, did the feds ever come to you accusing you of this and that?
Charles Cosby: No the feds never came to me with anything because I could cover it. I had businesses and sh*t; real estate and what not. I can speak freely on the sh*t now. For one the statute of limitations has run out. And two if they want to come and take what I have, fine come and take it. Material sh*t comes and goes, but that’s if they can find it.
AllHipHop.com: What was the hardest part of leaving the game for you? Did you miss the action, the status?
Charles Cosby: You know what? I can say this with absolute certainty. I didn’t miss sh*t about the game. Until this day I don’t even think about it. No matter how much money you make, these streets are a lie.
AllHipHop.com: As a guy who was at the top of drug game, what is the number one mistake this current generation makes to get them selves notice by the law? Is it being too flashy?
Charles Cosby: The biggest mistake any organization can commit is committing murders because that brings unwanted attention. The DEA know, the ATF know, the FBI know they can never ever stop drug dealing but once you bring the murder into things, it becomes a public outcry and they have no choice but to become more aggressive that’s how they create conspiracy laws, they connect the dots. But if they sold dope in peace and left the murders alone, you could have a ten or fifteen year run as long as you are under the radar.
As far as being flashy and sh*t, that’s another thing. That’s just as worse as committing murders because it’s one thing for the police to know you a major drug dealer but it’s an entire different thing to thumb your nose at the police like “yeah motherf***er, we doing this sh*t and there isn’t a dam thing you can do about it.” That a lie, they can take your ass down whenever they feel like it. So for these upcoming cats that want to be more flashy than smart, it’s a jail cell waiting for them too.
AllHipHop.com: After you stopped working for Griselda, were you still doing your own separate thing in the drug game?
Charles Cosby: When I broke off from Griselda Blanco, I had Columbians ringing my phone off the hook. They knew I knew how to get the job done. They knew if they laid five thousand kilograms on me, that I would move them relatively quickly and they are going to be paid. I passed it up though, I never looked back. That’s a part of my life I didn’t want to revisit some eleven years later. I’m still living good, I travel, go wherever I want to go, buy any car from any showroom floor. I’m doing well for myself. I got a beautiful family, what else can a man ask for?
Tags: charles cosby, cocaine cowboys 2, Griselda Blanco, interview