Tivoli Gardens, West Kingston, Jamaica. A place where poverty ran deep where the ghetto shaped men into survivors or swallowed them whole. On May 11th, 1956, in the ghetto known as Backo Wall, a boy was born who would orchestrate one of the most violent drug empires America had ever seen.
Vivian Blake entered a world of deprivation. But he carried something that set him apart. an extraordinary natural brilliance that even United States federal agents would later acknowledge with regret. This is the story of the man who built the shower posi into a Fortune 500 level criminal enterprise whose wasted genius left over 1,400 bodies across America in the 1980s.
Vivien Blake was born into extreme poverty in Bako Wall, one of Kingston’s most notorious slum communities that would later be demolished and rebuilt as Tivoli Gardens. He came from a poor family with nothing to offer him but the harsh realities of ghetto life. But young Viven had something that money couldn’t buy.
He had a mind that worked differently, sharper, faster than those around him. While other children struggled through their lessons, Blake excelled. He was recognized as a bright student from an early age, a math wiz who could solve problems that left his peers confused. His teachers saw the potential burning inside this poor boy from the ghetto.
And they made sure he got a chance that most children from Bako Wal would never see. Blake won a scholarship to St. George’s College, a prestigious private Catholic high school in Kingston, the kind of institution that required either extraordinary intellect or powerful family connections to enter. For Vivian Blake, it was pure intelligence that opened those doors.
At St. George’s College, Blake found himself in a different world. He was the poorest student in his class, walking long distances to school while his classmates arrived in expensive cars. They lived in mansions with privilege. Blake had nothing but his mind and worn shoes. The contrast was brutal and it shaped him.
This experience fueled his desire to live like those rich kids, to own the mansion, to have the wealth that seemed so effortlessly possessed by his classmates. But during those school years, he was still just a brilliant student, a model young man who impressed everyone who encountered him. At age 15, Vivian Blake met Lester Lloyd Ko known as Jim Brown.
Brown was already a rising figure in Tivoli Gardens, the dawn of the community, the muscle and enforcer. But Brown saw something special in young Blake. He encouraged him to stay in school, to use that sharp mind. Brown even told Blake he hoped the boy would become a lawyer one day. It was an unlikely friendship. Brown represented the street, the gun, the physical dominance.
Blake represented the intellect, the strategy, the quiet genius. Neither knew it then, but this partnership would create one of the most deadly criminal organizations the world had ever seen. In 1973, opportunity knocked unexpectedly. Vivian Blake, now 17, was chosen to travel to New York City as part of a Jamaican cricket team for an exhibition tour.
Blake was a good athlete and the trip was supposed to be brief, but when the cricket team prepared to return home, Vivian Blake made a choice that would alter everything. He stayed behind. He became an illegal immigrant in New York City, overstaying his visa with no work authorization, no path to education, and no legitimate opportunities.
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He was just a 17-year-old boy from the Kingston ghetto alone in Brooklyn with nothing but his wits. Out of necessity, Blake entered the drug trade. With no legal status and no way to earn honestly, he began selling marijuana in Brooklyn. Operating within the Jamaican immigrant community, he started small, moving product to fellow Jamaicans, learning the streets.
But Blake’s mathematical mind saw what others missed. He saw enormous profit potential in the American drug market. Profits that dwarfed anything possible in Jamaica. and he knew exactly who to contact. Blake reached out to Jim Brown, the man who had encouraged him to become a lawyer. This time, Blake had a different proposition.
He told Brown about the opportunity in America, about the money, about the empire they could build if they combined Blake’s business mind with Brown’s muscle and connections. The partnership was devastatingly effective. Vivian Blake handled United States operations, providing the brain strategy, distribution networks, and business structure.
Jim Brown supplied the muscle enforcers, political protection through Jamaica Labor Party connections in Tivoli Gardens, and later the cocaine gun pipelines. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Blake had shifted from marijuana to the far more profitable cocaine trade. He was helping introduce crack cocaine on a massive scale in places like the Bronx and cities across America.
The organization operated like a Fortune 500 company with structured hierarchies, territories, and ruthless enforcement. Around 1980 to 1981, the organization took on its infamous name, the shower posi. There are two stories about the name’s origin. The first ties it to politics. In 1980, Edward C.
Aa of the Jamaica Labor Party campaigned for prime minister and promised to shower Jamaicans with economic blessings. The gang aligned with Seagga’s JLP and operating from Tivoli Gardens allegedly took the name from that speech. The second story is more direct. The name came from the gang’s tactic of showering victims with automatic gunfire, raining bullets on anyone who crossed them.
Both stories were probably true. The shower posi represented political power and extreme violence. Wrapped in one deadly package, Blake expanded the network with methodical precision. He recruited fellow Jamaicans from Tivoli Gardens and West Kingston, especially after the violent 1970s. Jamaican elections drove many abroad.
His half-bros Tony Bruce and Errol Hussing ran the New York operations and were later arrested in the late 1980s. Blake built distribution networks spanning from Miami. their stronghold to New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and even Anchorage, Alaska, and Toronto. The shower posi moved over 1,000 tons of cocaine into the United States, generating profits that funded purchases of high-powered weapons and machine guns, shipped back to Jamaica to arm enforcers and protect political allies. The violence was
beyond comprehension. United States authorities determined that the shower posi under Blake’s US leadership was responsible for more than 1,400 drugrelated murders across America during the 1980s and early 1990s. Mainly during the crack epidemic, these weren’t quiet executions. The gang used indiscriminate showers of bullets from machine guns, targeting rivals.
debtors, witnesses, and sometimes innocent bystanders in turf wars, robberies, or retaliation. One gang member, Kirk Bruce, confessed to personally committing over 100 murders. The shower posi killed with brutality that shocked even hardened law enforcement officials. Vivien Blake was never proven to have personally pulled a trigger, but as strategic leader and CEO of US operations, he was held responsible for directing the organization.
His lawyer later said Blake always felt above the fray, that he saw himself as the businessman, not the hitman, but the blood was on his hands. In November 1984, five people were executed in a Miami crack house in what became the most cited murder linked to Blake’s organization. The victims included a pregnant woman who allegedly begged for her unborn child’s life.
The massacre allegedly occurred after Lester Jim Brown Ko was robbed at the location. Brown reportedly called in gunmen, including Charles Little Miller, who participated in the slaughter. This quintupole homicide became the centerpiece of what would bring down Blake’s empire. In 1988, a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale handed down a massive indictment.
Vivian Blake and 33 other Shower Posi members were charged in a 62count racketeering indictment that included drug trafficking, firearms violations, conspiracy, and eight murder charges covering 1984 to 1986. The indictment listed murders in Miami, including the November 1984 Quintipal homicide, one in New York City, and two in Los Angeles.
The case was built substantially on testimony from Charles Little Nut Miller, who had turned informant and provided detailed information about Blake’s role as Miami and United States director. Blake was personally linked to at least eight murders and four attempted murders, though never convicted of personally killing anyone.
Blake knew what was coming. On December 3rd, 1988, before authorities could arrest him, he fled the United States. He boarded a cruise ship in Miami bound for Jamaica and sailed away from American justice. For the next several years, he lived in Jamaica as a wanted fugitive fighting extradition with every legal tool available.
While fighting through the courts, Blake established legitimate businesses, a nightclub called Cactus, a motorbike rental agency on Sirius and a loans company that would later serve as the model for his daughter’s investment business. To the outside world, he was a successful entrepreneur. to law enforcement. He was one of the most wanted men in the Western Hemisphere.
The fight went on for nearly six years. In 1994, Jamaican authorities finally arrested him on the US extradition warrant. The legal battle continued until 1999 when Blake lost his final appeal. In 1999, Vivian Blake was extradited to Miami to face racketeering charges that had waited over a decade. Facing possible life sentence if convicted at trial, Blake made a calculated decision, he entered a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
He pleaded guilty to racketeering, criminal conspiracy, and drug possession. He admitted his leadership role in the shower posi, but never admitted to personally killing anyone. His lawyer, David Ro, said Blake always maintained that distinction. He was the strategist, the CEO, not the trigger man. US District Judge Norman Roettka sentenced Blake to 20 to 28 years in federal prison with credit for time.
Already served in Jamaican custody, Blake was sent to federal prisons, including Allen Wood and Coleman. Even in prison, Blake’s story took dark turns. After his indictment and arrest, rumors spread in Jamaica that Blake had become an informant, a leaked man, providing information to authorities. The rumors alleged he gave intelligence on rivals, dead gunmen.
Other informants like Kirk Bruce, marijuana shipments from Jim Brown, and gambling operations. The rumors cause chaos in the Jamaican underworld and damaged Blake’s reputation severely. Whether he actually cooperated fully was never officially confirmed, but the street believed he had talked. And in that world, belief is reality.
Blake lacked Jim Brown Street credibility, and his long absence from Jamaica made the rumors easier to believe. Blake served approximately 8 to 10 years total, far less than his sentence. He was released early in late 2008 or early 2009 due to severe health problems. There were allegations of institutional poisoning that affected his kidneys and overall health.
By the time he walked free, Blake was a sick man suffering from kidney failure and diabetes requiring regular dialysis. In January 2009, Vivien Blake was deported back to Jamaica after roughly 15 years in custody. He returned with significant wealth. US federal authorities estimated he had around $100 million.
Remnants of his cocaine empire hidden over the years. Blake came home quietly, but his presence did not go unnoticed. Powerful figures visited him, but he moved with heavy protection. The man who had orchestrated violence across two continents was now a target himself. Shortly after his return, Blake went to the Supreme Court in Kingston for a legal matter.
As he sat in his vehicle outside the courthouse, he sensed danger. He later described seeing two policemen staring at him with clear intent to kill. Blake, still sharp despite his illness, drove off quickly with his family, narrowly escaping what he believed was an assassination attempt. Someone wanted him dead, whether for revenge, his alleged cooperation with authorities, or to silence him forever.
He spent his final months living quietly, working on a screenplay about his life and the shower posi. his daughter Dominique who had won an NCAA title in the 4×400 meter relay at Pennsylvania State University and was training for the Jamaican Olympic team stayed in a close contact. She later said there was not one day in her life she did not speak to her father.
Blake had largely shielded both Dominique and her older brother Dwayne from the full extent of his criminal activities. Dwayne, a journalist and author, had written a 2003 book titled Shower Posi, the most notorious Jamaican crime organization. Based on conversations with his father while imprisoned, Blake’s health continued deteriorating.
The kidney failure and diabetes were taking their toll. About 14 months after his return to Jamaica in March 2010, he fell seriously ill. On the night of Sunday, March 21st, 2010, he was rushed to the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, complaining of severe breathing problems. Despite efforts to save him, Vivian Blake suffered a heart attack.
He died that night at age 53. Some reports say 54. Ruel Rainford, the senior director of administration and operations at the hospital, confirmed the death and stated an autopsy was planned for a man linked to over 1,400 murders whose organization had showered American cities with bullets and blood for more than a decade.
The end came quietly in a hospital bed. There was no dramatic shootout, no gang war, no public execution, just organ failure and a failing heart. His funeral, held days later, was shockingly small. Only about 17 people attended with more police and security personnel present than actual mourners. The low attendance reflected multiple realities.
The informant rumors had alienated much of the criminal underworld. Blake had never been a traditional street dawn who commanded personal loyalty from foot soldiers. He had operated from abroad in boardrooms and distribution networks rather than on corners. And his family kept the service deliberately low-key, almost like a private prayer service.
In the aftermath of Vivian Blake’s death, Jamaica and America were left to reckon with his legacy. Here was a man of extraordinary natural brilliance who had impressed even the federal agents tasked with bringing him down. A Miami prosecutor who handled his case stated it plainly. He was a very intelligent man and it is a great pity that he did not use his intellect for a legitimate purpose. Dr.
Peter Phillips, former Jamaican Minister of National Security, said that while any death is saddening, it would do Jamaica well to examine Blake’s own admissions in his establishment of highlevel criminal organizations. The genius had been wasted, channeled into an empire of cocaine and capes instead of something that could have uplifted his community.
If Blake had pursued politics, law, or legitimate business with the same ruthless intelligence he applied to the drug trade, the impact could have been extraordinary. Instead, he left behind over 1,000 tons of smuggled cocaine, more than 1,400 murdered souls, shattered communities across the United States, and a criminal blueprint that others would follow.
His half brothers had been arrested. His brother Paul Blake was shot and killed at his home in Upper St. Andrew Kingston on November 1st, 2009, just months before Vivian’s death. Vivian Blake was survived by his wife Valerie, his two children Dwayne and Dominique, and four grandchildren. His daughter continued running Black Knight Investments.
The loans company modeled after the business her father started while fighting extradition. His son’s book remained one of the few detailed accounts of the shower posi’s inner workings. His story was featured in a 2008 episode of BET’s American Gangster series. The shower posi itself continued even after Blake’s death. Federal prosecutors were seeking extradition of Christopher Ko, son of Lester Jim Brown Ko, who had become the current leader facing charges of drug distribution and firearms trafficking.
The cycle of violence that Vivian Blake helped set in motion kept turning generation after generation in the same blood soaked communities where it all began. Looking back at Vivian Blake’s life is to witness the tragedy of wasted potential on a massive scale. Born into poverty on May 11th, 1956 in the slums of Bako Wal, he used his brilliant mind to claw his way out only to build an empire of death that stretched across continents.
He was the brains behind the shower posi, the strategist who turned a Kingston street gang into an international narcotic syndicate responsible for more murders than almost any criminal organization of its era. He lived above the fray, never pulling the trigger himself, but directing the symphony of violence that claimed over 1,400 lives.
He escaped justice for over a decade, living openly in Jamaica while fighting extradition, even building legitimate businesses as if he were just another entrepreneur. He finally faced American justice in 1999, served less than 10 years despite his crimes, and returned home a wealthy but broken man. And then, just 14 months after his return, his body gave out.
The man who had orchestrated so much death died quietly, almost peacefully, surrounded not by mourning crowds, but by a handful of family and the ghost of all those he had destroyed. Vivian Blake’s story is a reminder that intelligence without conscience is not genius. It is simply a more efficient form of evil.
And in the end, no amount of brilliance could save him from the consequences of the life he chose, the blood he spilled, and the legacy of violence he left behind.
