Griselda Blanco Restrepo (February 15, 1943 – September 3,
2012), known as La Madrina, the Black Widow, the Cocaine Godmother and the
Queen of Narco-Trafficking was a Colombian drug lord of the Medellín Cartel
and a pioneer in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade and underworld during the
1980s, all the way to the early 2000s. It has been estimated that she was
responsible for up to 20 00 murders while transporting cocaine from Colombia to
New York, Miami, and Southern California. She was shot and killed on September 3, 2012,
at the age of 69.
Biography
Early life
Blanco was born in Cartagena, Colombia, on the country's
north coast. She and her mother, Ana Lucía Restrepo, moved to Medellín when she
was three years old. Upon arriving there, she quickly adopted a criminal
lifestyle. Blanco's former lover, Charles Cosby, recounted that at the age of
11, Blanco allegedly kidnapped, attempted to ransom and eventually shot a child
from an upscale flatland neighborhood near her own neighborhood. Blanco had become a pickpocket before she even
turned 13. To escape the sexual assaults from her mother's boyfriend, Blanco
ran away from home at the age of 16 and resorted to looting in Medellín until
the age of 20.
Drug business
In the mid-1970s, Blanco and her second husband Alberto
Bravo illegally immigrated to the US with fake passports, settling in Queens,
New York. They established a sizable cocaine business there and in April 1975,
Blanco was indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges along with 30 of her
subordinates. She fled to Colombia before she could be arrested, but returned
to the United States, settling in Miami in the late 1970s.
Blanco's return to the US from Colombia more or less
coincided with the beginning of very public violent conflicts that involved
hundreds of murders and killings yearly which were associated with the high
crime epidemic that swept the City of Miami in the 1980s. Law enforcement's
struggle to put an end to the influx of cocaine into Miami led to the creation
of CENTAC 26 (Central Tactical Unit), a joint operation between Miami-Dade
Police Department and DEA anti-drug operation.
Blanco was involved in the drug-related violence known as
the Miami Drug War or the Cocaine Cowboy Wars that plagued Miami in the late
1970s and early 1980s. This was a time when cocaine was trafficked more than
marijuana. It was the lawless and
corrupt atmosphere, primarily created by Blanco's operations, which led to the
gangsters being dubbed the "Cocaine Cowboys" and their violent way of
doing business as the "Miami drug war".
Her distribution network, which spanned the United States,
brought in US$80,000,000 per month. Her
violent business style brought government scrutiny to South Florida, leading to
the demise of her organization and the free-wheeling, high-profile Miami drug
scene of those times.
In 1984, Blanco's willingness to use violence against her
Miami competitors or anyone else who displeased her led her rivals to make
repeated attempts to assassinate her. In an attempt to escape the hits that
were called on her, she fled to California.
Arrest
On February 17, 1985, she was arrested by DEA agents in her
home and held without bail. After her trial, Blanco was sentenced to more than
a decade in jail. While in prison, she
continued to effectively run her cocaine business with the help of her son
Michael Blanco.
By pressuring one of Blanco's lieutenants, the Miami-Dade
State Attorney's Office obtained sufficient evidence to indict Blanco for three
murders. However, the case collapsed due to technicalities relating to a
telephone-sex scandal between the star witness and female secretaries in the
District attorney's office. In 2002, Blanco suffered a heart attack while
imprisoned.
In 2004, Blanco was released from prison and deported to
Medellín, Colombia. Before her death in
2012, the last sighting of Blanco was in May 2007 at the Bogotá Airport.
Murder
On the night of September 3, 2012, Blanco died after having
been shot 2 times; once in the head and once in the shoulder by a motorcyclist
in Medellín, Colombia. She was shot at
Cardiso butcher shop on the corner of 29th Street, after having bought $150
worth of meat; the middle-aged gunman climbed off the back of a motorbike
outside the shop, entered, pulled out a gun, and shot Blanco two times before
calmly walking back to his bike and disappearing into the city. She was 69.
Personal life
Blanco's first husband was Carlos Trujillo. Together they
had three sons, Dixon, Uber, and Osvaldo, all of them poorly educated, and all
of whom were killed in Colombia after being deported following prison sentences
in the United States.
Her second husband was Alberto Bravo. In 1975, Blanco
confronted Bravo, who was also her business partner, in a Bogotá nightclub
parking lot about millions of dollars missing from the profits of the cartel
they'd built together. The Guardian reports: "Blanco, then 32, pulled out
a pistol, Bravo responded by producing an Uzi submachine gun and after a
blazing gun battle he and six bodyguards lay dead. Blanco, who suffered only a
minor gunshot wound to the stomach recovered and soon afterward moved to
Miami, where her body count – and reputation for ruthlessness – continued to
climb."
Blanco had her youngest son, Michael Corleone Blanco, with
her third husband, Darío Sepúlveda. Sepúlveda
left her in 1983, returned to Colombia, and kidnapped Michael when he and
Blanco disagreed over who would take custody. Blanco paid to have Sepúlveda
assassinated in Colombia, and her son returned to her in Miami.
According to the Miami New Times, "Michael's father and
older siblings were all killed before he reached adulthood. His mom was in
prison for most of his childhood and teenage years, and he was raised by his
maternal grandmother and legal guardians." In 2012, Michael was put under house arrest
after a May arrest on two felony counts of cocaine trafficking and conspiracy
to traffic in cocaine.
Blanco was openly bisexual. According to The New York Post, "Court
records show Blanco was a drug addict who consumed vast quantities of 'basuco',
a potent form of smokeable, unrefined cocaine ... would force men and women to
have sex at gunpoint, and had frequent bisexual orgies." Her
"favorite possessions included an emerald and gold MAC-10 machine pistol,
Eva Perón's pearls and a tea set once used by the Queen of England". The
report continues: "In court, it was revealed that Blanco killed three
former husbands as well as strippers, business rivals – and innocent
bystanders, including a 4-year-old boy."
According to her youngest son Michael, Blanco became a born-again
Christian. She had a personal
relationship with Anna Cruz, whom she loved as her daughter; Anna cut ties with
her when she found out who Blanco really was.
In popular culture
Films
Blanco features prominently in the documentary films Cocaine
Cowboys (2006) and Cocaine Cowboys 2 (2008; also written as Cocaine Cowboys II:
Hustlin' with the Godmother).
And, as of yet, the unreleased film titled The Godmother is
currently in production, starring Jennifer Lopez as Blanco, which she also
plans to produce. Lynderah Paul plays Blanco in her late teens.
HBO is developing a film with Jennifer Lopez attached to
play the notorious drug lord. The film focuses on the rise and fall of
"The Cocaine Godmother".
Catherine Zeta-Jones filmed Cocaine Godmother, a television
biopic on drug lord Griselda Blanco, which premiered in 2018 on Lifetime.
Music
Buffalo, New York artists Westside Gunn and Conway the
Machine use Blanco's name in their label, Griselda by Fashion Rebels,
abbreviated as GxFR
Rapper The Game references Griselda Blanco in his lyrics to
"See No Evil" – "...karma catches up to all you head honchos/
Two dome shots to head, Griselda Blanco"
Rapper Pusha T references her in his lyrics to
"Pain" (2013) – "Put your freedom over failure/Tryna find my
Griselda (La Madrina!)/Might as well, they gon' nail ya/Momma screaming like
Mahalia"
Rapper Jacki-O released a mixtape entitled Griselda Blanco,
La Madrina (2010) as an ode to Blanco's lifestyle and character. Griselda
Blanco's son, Michael Blanco, later gave his blessing to promote the mixtape.
Rapper Lil Kim created alter ego "Kimmy Blanco" as
tribute to Blanco; Kim debuted this persona in her
2013
single of the same name.
Rap group Migos have made references to her in multiple
songs, "Portland" by Drake, and their own song "F*** Up the
Pot".
Rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again references her in “Slime
Belief” (2018) - “Can you make it better/ trap out like Griselda/ post up with barrettes/ hustlin through the night
Rapper Slimesito has a song named “Griselda” which contains
multiple references to Blanco.
Rapper Nicki Minaj references her in her freestyle “Suge
Remix” (2019)- “Drug lord, Griselda/ I used to move the weight through Delta”.
She
is also referenced on Nicki Minaj’s verse on Chance the Rapper’s song, “Slide
Around” (2019) - “Me and my man Griselda and Pablo”.
Yeasayer's song Grizelda is inspired by her, sung from the
perspective of one of her hitmen.
Literature
Blanco played a minor role in Marlon James' book A Brief
History of Seven Killings (2014).
Blanco played a significant role in Jon Roberts' book
American Desperado (2011).
Television
In Comedy Central's
Drunk History, season 3, episode 2 ("Miami"), Dan Harmon tells
the story of the rise and fall of Blanco, starring Maya Rudolph (as Blanco),
Horatio Sanz, and Joe Lo Truglio.
Blanco is portrayed by Mexican actress Ana Serradilla in the
Spanish-language telenovela La Viuda
Negra (2014), an adaptation of the book La patrona de Pablo Escobar de José
Guarnizo.
Jada Pinkett Smith
used her as a model for her character Fish Mooney on Gotham.
Blanco was also featured among the Deadly Women top 10 as #3 on the killer countdown.
The television series Get
Shorty features a character named Amara de Escalones (played by Lidia
Porto), who is based on Blanco.
Blanco was also featured on the Investigation Discovery series Evil
Lives Here in an episode called "The Last Blanco".
A very fictionalized version of Blanco known as La Madrina appears in the Archer episode
"Smuggler's Blues" (Season 5, Episode 7).
In the Netflix
series Daybreak the career of
Griselda Blanco serves as a role model for the child prodigy Angelica and her
peddling of prescription drugs.
Podcast
Griselda Blanco's life, from her abusive childhood to her
tragic death was covered on the June 5, 2018, episode of Behind the Bastards, a podcast hosted by Robert Evans and the October 8, 2019 episode of She Sleuths,
a true-crime podcast hosted by Kristin Harris and Amy Springer.
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