Showing results for title "Mrs" in Organized Crime

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth? In the intervening years, “Marm” Mandelbaum had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and a criminal mastermind.

The story of Pablo Escobar, one of the wealthiest, most powerful and most violent criminals of all time has fascinated the world. Yet the one person closest to him has never spoken out - until now. Maria Victoria Henao met Pablo when she was 13, eloped with him at 15 and, despite his numerous infidelities and violence, stayed by his side for the following 16 years until his death. At the same time, she urged him to make peace with his enemies and managed to negotiate her and her children’s freedom after Pablo’s demise.