The rise of the 'Queenpin': how more and more young women are becoming Griselda-style 'godmothers', running clandestine empires and drug trafficking

More and more young women lured by money, designer clothes and luxury holidays are becoming Griselda-style “queens”, responsible for flooding Britain's streets with drugs.

Others play leading roles in international money laundering and smuggling rings, including a 31-year-old Kim Kardashian lookalike who was caught flying to Dubai with £2million worth of money. cash hidden in his suitcases.

Saleha Saed, who was jailed earlier this month, was just 18 when she wrested control of a national drug trafficking operation from her former boyfriend, telling him: ” You delude yourself into thinking the line is yours when it’s really mine.”

The gangster, now 21, spread misery and fear by recruiting young people into the gang which oversaw the Fat Boy line, which transported 3kg of heroin and crack cocaine from London to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk .

Another recently incarcerated drug boss is Danielle Stafford, a trained engineer who ran a lucrative drug empire that began in 2017 when she began selling cannabis.

The rise of Queenpins like Griselda Blanco, the Colombian cartel leader who inspired the hit Netflix series, is part of a broader rise in the number of women involved in serious crimes.

Female offenders have played a leading role in a series of criminal plots dismantled by British police in recent months – reflecting a wider trend which has seen the global female prison population increase by more than half.

Although male offenders remain much more common – particularly when it comes to violent offenses – criminologists say that societal changes that have given women more freedom of action in many areas of life have made them also made more likely to rise to leadership positions in gangs.

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The 29-year-old, from Cottingham in Yorkshire, spent her drug money on a second home, nine watches and three expensive Louis Vuitton handbags without even touching the salary she earned from her job.

The number of women involved in crime has increased globally in previous decades.

Researchers at the University of London found that the global female prison population increased by more than half between 2000 and 2017, while the male population increased by only a fifth.

There are now 3,651 women in prison in England and Wales, an increase of 10 per cent on the previous year, and the figure is more than double the figure 30 years ago.

While the majority of them were imprisoned for non-violent crimes, others are responsible for more serious crimes.

This was reflected in Europol's controversial 2019 campaign, Crime Has No Gender, which aimed to raise awareness of the number of female fugitives on its most wanted list.

A leading criminologist consulted by MailOnline said dramatic changes in the role of women in society have given them more power in many areas of life, including making them more likely to hold leadership positions in criminal networks.

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Meanwhile, Linda Sage – a criminal psychologist with decades of experience working with serious offenders in prisons – said the motivations of female criminals were similar to those of men.

'The role of women has changed and women see themselves differently,' she told MailOnline.

“I don't think the motivations of serious female offenders differ greatly from those of men. For crimes like trafficking, this includes the need to make money in a way that is considered quick and easy.

Tara Hanlon, 31, was jailed in 2023 for almost three years after she was caught transporting around £2million from the UK to Dubai as part of the crime ring involving the former's ex boxer Joe Calzaghe.

Bragging videos show her parading around Dubai's £500-a-night Five Palm Jumeirah hotel and gushing about “look at this view”.

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The videos she took showing the loot from her trafficking could only be published after co-conspirators, including Jo-Emma Larvin, 44, and Beatrice Auty, 26, were convicted last April .

Another striking case last year saw a coke-selling grandmother given a suspended sentence after being found with £8,500 worth of Class A drugs hidden in his semi-detached house following a police raid.

Julie Cobley, 62, led an enviable middle-class lifestyle in the Northamptonshire village of Deanshanger, financed by the small packets of white powder she dispensed from the doorstep of her £400,000 home.

It then emerged that Ms Cobley had left packets of the drugs near her bins and in small bags taped just inside her letterbox for her customers to collect, dropping off cash notes in exchange.

A court heard how neighbors in the quiet, leafy street initially took Ms Cobley literally, but, eventually, at least one of them became suspicious of the constant stream of visitors who would show up at all hours of the night and approach his house – but never call. the bell where I entered.

Other women play active roles in criminal plots led by their husbands.

They include Coleen Campbell, 38, who helped thugs torture her ex-husband to death; and Georgia Burns, 22, who was involved in her boyfriend's racketeering operation in the county, which used three 16-year-old schoolboys as “slaves.”

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Campbell was convicted of manslaughter with conspiracy to rob and was jailed for 13 years in 2023, while Burns received a suspended sentence.

Recruitment specialist Pavandeep Nijjar, 29, also escaped prison for trafficking cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine to her gangster boyfriend.

In February, she was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for 23 months.

The Netflix series Griselda tells the story of Griselda Blanco's bloody rise to become the world's first female criminal billionaire.

After being thrust into the cocaine industry by her second husband, whom she later killed, Griselda built a thriving drug empire that allowed her to earn more than $80 million every month.

She was ultimately convicted of drug trafficking in 1985 and incarcerated, but was able to continue running her empire from behind bars.

However, the conviction prompted authorities to attempt to bring additional charges against the career criminal, including for more than 200 murders.

In 1994, one of her former hitmen, Jorge Ayala, agreed to testify against her and Griselda was charged with three murders.

One of them was that of a two-year-old boy who was fatally shot during a failed assassination attempt on his father, who was one of Griselda's former henchmen.

The investigation stalled, but the drug lord decided to plead guilty in 1998 in an attempt to reduce his sentence.

After her release after 10 years in prison, she was deported to Colombia where she allegedly “retired” from her life of crime.

But it seems her past has caught up with her, and in 2012 Griselda was shot and killed while leaving a butcher's shop in Medellin, aged 69.