The Legend of Griselda Blanco ‘La Madrina’

Griselda Blanco was one of the biggest Colombian drug traffickers in the 1970s and 1980s. The cartel that she led, in Medellín, traced drug trafficking routes from Colombia to Miami, and from there  to many other points within the United States.

According to U.S. authorities, these routes were the same used later by well-known Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar.

Blanco was considered a ruthless woman, who did not hesitate to order the assassinations of her enemies and those who had betrayed her.

She was known as ‘The Godmother of Cocaine’ and ‘The Queen of Cocaine’ because, according to DEA estimates, she managed to move drugs worth more than $1 billion a year during her decade of operation. The illegal trafficking earned her around $80 million monthly.

She also was called ‘The Black Widow’ due of the number of partners, men and women, whom she had dated. She also had four children out of which three were murdered.

 

Blanco’s life will be the subject of a new Netflix series, “Griselda,” with Sofia Vergara in the starring role as Griselda Blanco, she will also be an executive producer alongside the production team for ‘Narcos’. In addition reggaetón star Karol G will debut as an actress playing one of Griselda’s mules.

Other films based on her life are the popular 2006 documentaries ‘Cocaine Cowboys’ and its sequel, “Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin’ with The Godmother. ”She has also been mentioned in a slew of records including on rap tracks by NBA Youngboy Drake and The Game and Westside Gunn.

 

 

Griselda was born in Cartagena Colombia in 1943. At the age of 13 she was allegedly forced into sex work and later turned to crime.

While still a child herself, Blanco allegedly kidnapped an 11-year-old boy. When his family refused to pay his ransom, she murdered the child, according to reports.

She was married as a teenager to a gangster and the couple had three children. When the couple divorced, he was found dead. Many suspected Blanco to have killed him.

By the 1970s, she married fellow gangster Alberto Bravo. Bravo introduced her to Colombia’s notorious Medellín Cartel, whose most famous leaders were Fabio Ochoa and Pablo Escobar, according to news articles and reports.

She and Bravo’s frequent trips eventually caught the attention of the U.S Government in what was known as “Operation Banshee.” Blanco and Bravo were living in Queens New York, when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) intercepted a reported 150 kilograms of cocaine from Blanco. She and 30 others were indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges as a result.

But by then, Blanco had already fled to Colombia, where she killed Bravo in a shootout after beginning to suspect him of stealing money as stated in the documentary.

She reportedly remarried and then had her third husband killed, thus earning her the scary nickname, “the Black Widow.”

By the late 1970s, Blanco had snuck back into the U.S. and seized control of the drug trade in Miami-Dade County, Florida. This would lead to the “Cocaine Cowboy” wars of the 1970s and 1980s, where rival gangs would shoot it out in the streets for control of the drug trade.

Blanco is believed to have been responsible for as many as 200 murders. At this point the authorities were onto her, but somehow Blanco managed to evade while living it up in South Florida. As Miami became a hotbed for crime, Blanco became the most feared and respected gangster in the City.

The cocaine business flourished so much in Miami during Blanco’s reign that Miami-Dade County’s former chief medical examiner, Dr. Joseph Davis, said in “Cocaine Cowboys” that if a person took out a dollar bill from their wallet at the time, they would find traces of cocaine on it.

Blanco eventually made her way to California, but in1985, DEA agents arrested her while she was lying in bed at home.

She was convicted in 1986 on one count of conspiracy to manufacture, import into the United States and distribute cocaine. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison. There, she also found power among her fellow inmates.

In 1994, prosecutors in Miami-Dade County attempted to charge her with three cold case murders stemming back to the early 1980s, but the case unraveled after secretaries working in the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office allegedly had phone sex with the prosecution’s key witness, confessed cocaine ring hitman Jorge Ayala. The women were also allegedly cashed money orders he sent them.

In 1998, Blanco pleaded guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. Six years later she was released and deported to her native Colombia, where she reportedly left the criminal life behind her.

In 2012, (at the age of 69), Griselda Blanco was killed by a ‘sicario’ (a hitman on a motorcycle) as she left a butcher shop in Medellín.