MIAMI – When an assassin in Miami-Dade killed Oscar Piedrahita — who had allegedly betrayed Colombian cocaine trafficker Griselda Blanco — he used a submachine gun. The hitman put more bullets in Piedrahita’s garage door than he put in him.
The killer used the Military Armament Corporation’s MAC-10, which fires off more than 1,000 rounds per minute with little accuracy. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Dave Wilson told then Local 10 reporter Mark Potter that he had only seen a few machine guns during his long career.
“It seems like I see one a week in this town,” Wilson said about Miami-Dade during an interview that aired in the 1982 five-part series, “Colombian Drug Wars.”
Former President Richard Nixon had already declared a “war on drugs” in 1971, which prompted the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, or BNDD, to turn into the DEA in 1973. Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade, the list of cold cases continued to grow.
On Christmas Day in 1975, a man’s body was floating in a canal. Detectives identified him as Jeffrey Owen Warner, who “was a part of a drug organization” and reported his associates “refused to speak to authorities or have been killed themselves.” He was 24.
Detectives identified Blanco as a suspect who stood to win in the 1979 deadly Dadeland Mall shootout since she allegedly owed money to one of the victims. June Hawkins, an analyst with Metro-Dade Police who investigated Blanco, was worried they were outpowered and outnumbered.
“We are losing the battle,” Hawkins told Potter. “I mean we are just flat-out losing.”
Detectives also identified Blanco as being behind the 1982 murder of 2-year-old Johnny Castro, who Dade police officers found dead — wrapped in bed sheets with roses. His grieving father, Jesus “Chucho” Castro, told police that he had worked for Blanco and he and his son were in the car during a drive-by shooting.
‘’When they meet up with me, they’re going to kill me,’’ Castro, 44, told a Dade detective, according to the New York Times. “I’m going to take a few of them with me.”
Dade detectives had more cold cases that remain unsolved to this day:
- A shooter killed Diego L. Ramirez, who was Colombian, in 1984, in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the Tamiami area. He was 27.
- Felipe Oscar Santiesteban, who detectives identified as “a known narcotics dealer/trafficker,” was shot in his driveway in 1985 in the Princeton area. He was 40.
- Also in 1985, near Kendall, a car bomb exploded killing Glenn Gibbs, who detectives identified as “a member of a drug organization who had become a federal witness” and was set to testify in court.
- In 1986, Pedro Luis Castellon, who is Colombian, died after a shooting in a shopping mall in Miami Gardens.
Meanwhile, the White House attempted to target demand. President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 to appropriate $1.7 billion to “the war” and to turn federal supervised release into a punitive system for narcotics cases. First Lady Nancy Reagan promoted her “Just Say No” campaign.
“Out of our drug-related cases, I would say maybe 10% get solved,” Hawkins told Potter about Miami-Dade crimes. “Out of our total caseload, our drug-related cases are reaching ... 20% to 40%.”
In Colombia, the Supreme Court justices ruled 13-12 in 1987 to get rid of extradition to the U.S. Dade detectives suspected that many of the serial killers use fake IDs to travel back and forth from Miami to Medellin.
“Colombians are very nomadic. They have no roots in the community and they are very mobile,” Metro-Dade Lt. Raul Diaz told Potter. “We have had cases in which immediately after a homicide, we have responded to a residence in which we know there are suspects, associates of the victim or associates of the suspect and they have moved within hours after a crime has been committed.”
In 1988, detectives found the body of Eugene “Yellow” Bell inside of a box, on the side of the road. Bell, 41, was from Chicago, Illinois, and detectives suspected he “ was involved” in narcotics trafficking. A witness saw “a Latin male, 30 to 40 years of age” in a truck.
Dr. Charles Wetli, a medical examiner who worked on many of the cold cases in Miami-Dade, told Potter that it was a “typical” crime and many times it’s very hard to identify the victims.
“A Cadillac pulls up on the side of the road, takes a large box out of his trunk, puts it on the side of the road, and drives off,” Wetli said. “And inside the box, this person has been shot, and tied up and placed in plastic bags.”
In 1989, witnesses told detectives they saw a car driving away before finding a man dead in a field at Southwest 312 Street and 202 Avenue. The clean-shaven murder victim, who weighed 183 pounds, was shot. He was wearing a white striped shirt with dark pants, brown eyes, and salt and pepper hair.
Detectives asked questions but no one had answers. It has been over three decades, and detectives have yet to identify the man. Even when faced with jail time, they refuse to help detectives.
“They may not know how to say very much in English, but they will know how to say, ‘I want an attorney’ or ‘I don’t know,’” Hawkins said about the lack of cooperation from Spanish-speaking suspects and witnesses.
Wilson said this is because narcotraffickers knew how to use terror to exert control. Art Nehrbass, of Dade’s organized Crime Bureau, said a witness coming over “the side of law enforcement” was not only risking his own life but also risking the safety of his family back in Colombia.
Despite the challenges, U.S. law enforcement managed to build both federal in New York and local in Miami-Dade against Blanco. The DEA has arrested her in California.
After she was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a federal court in New York City for cocaine-related convictions, she pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder in Miami-Dade and was sentenced to three concurrent 20-year sentences.
The DEA believes three of Blanco’s four sons were murdered. Health issues prompted U.S. authorities to deport her in 2004, and a shooter killed her in 2012 in Medellin.
A new generation of detectives still faces drug dealing and fatal drive-by shootings in Miami-Dade. In 2022, a killer on a dirt bike brought back memories of the Medellin cartel’s swift pistoleros on motorcycles.
The motive remained unclear. Oscar “Lulu” Garcia was traveling on I-95 southbound in Miami when the gunman on the bike shot him and fled, according to Miami Detective Miguel Medina.
This murder also remains unsolved.