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Griselda Blanco Restrepo was a Colombian drug lord who lived from February 15, 1943, to September 3, 2012. She was well-known in Miami’s underground and cocaine-based drug trade from the 1970s to the early 2000s, and some have even suggested that she was a member of the Medellín Cartel. At the age of 69, Blanco was killed in Medellín on September 3, 2012.
On September 3, 2012, Blanco went to the Cardiso butcher store on the corner of 29th Street in Medellín with her pregnant daughter-in-law. She was shot twice as she stepped out by a motorcycle-riding assassin who killed her. The performance was a spoof of Blanco’s manner of assassination during the Miami Drug War
Known has madrina the god mother and viuda negra – the black widow
due to her ties with Pablo
and the death of three of her husbands , Ana griselda blanco restrepo was a trailblazer in the cocaine pipleline
from colombia to the United states, during her reign of terror in Florida
the black widow ordered as many as 250 revenge attacks every months .
and her Empire shipped over 3.400 of cocaine into the country. her distribution network spanned the entire US. generationg a staggering 80 million a monthly
Griselda blanco was a formidable figure not to be triffled with
in fact she instilled fear even in the notorious pablo escobar .
Griselda blanco wasborn on February 15 ,1943 in cartagena , colombia on the country’s north coast
in 1955 she moved to medellín with her mother , ana luchia restrepo who was a sex worker struggling with addiction and prone to violent outbursts
their relocation to medellin was due to a turbulent period in colombia’s history.
in 1941 ,colombia was rocked by violence following the assassination of the liberal leader in Bogota.
this event sparked an underclared civil war between the country’s two main political parties , it was a time marked by brutal acts, where political rivals would gruesomely eliminate their enemies
and entire communities suffered for supporting the wrong politician, amidst this chaos children were often left abandoned in playgrounds. highlighting the extreme brutality of the Era.
Grisela Blanco grew up in the tough streets of medellin ,colombia’s second largest city.
her neighborhood bario antiochia was a hotbed of crime, filled with gangsters,prostitutes and killers, it was so notorious that it was officially labeled a tolerant zone where illegal activites were tolerated
much like a red light district.
starting as a pickpocket Griselda soon escalated her criminal activities .
it is said that at just 11 years old Griselda blanco committed a shocking act , she kidnapped a boy her own age from a wealthier neigborhood.hoping to ransom him for money.
however when his parents didn’t take her thteats seriously she made a chilling decision ,without hesitation she ended the boys life. it was a stark display of her willingness to do whatever it took to archieve her goals ,even at such a young age.
in the mid 1950s at just 13 years old griselda blanco escaped from her drunk and abusive mother she crossed paths with Carlos Trujillo a much more older man involved in forgery and human human trafficking.
Carlos Trujillo wwas known for smuggling hundreds of colombians into the untied states. annually ,over 5 years he mentored griselda in the dark art of forging passports and she quickly mastered the skill of creating fake identities
together they organized the illegal smuggling of thousands of people into the united state.
Trujillo became more than just a mentor he was griselda’s partner and some say her true love. he thaught her everything he knew , particarly ins and outs of smuggling.
by the time griselda turned 19, she and trujillo were married with three sons splitting their time between colombia and new york.
by the late 1960s carlos trujillo med a sudden end,officially his death wasattributed to liver failure,however unofficially suspicions arose, pointing towards Griselda as the one behind his demise.
Griselda blanco wasted no time in finding a replacement husband within barley 3 years she had lined up alberto bravo.
unlike trujillo bravo wasn’t involved in people smuggling instead he dealt incoke.despite bravo’s existing gangster connections and real estate ventures his drug business was relatively small scale, trafficking only modest the amounts of coke.
however blanco had grander ambitions in the early 1970s cocaine was still emergin as a popular party drug in america.
but its potential for profit was evident, blanco recognized this burgeoning market and saw an opportunity to establish a coke Empire with her criminal prowess and and Bravo’s connections they were poised to capitalize on the growing demand for coke in the united states.
together Blanco and her new partner wee primed to make a significant impact on the drug trade initiating a crime wave that would reverberate across the nation
at this stage it becomes apparent that griselda blanco strategically cultivates relationships with men that offer her economic and social advantages from the outset.
as the new decade began Grizelda blanco and Alberto bravo were residing in Queens new york city leveraging Trujillo’s old people smuggling network
Blanco efficiently distributed coke throughout the city,simultaneously she devised innovative methods to smuggle drugs into America.
One of the most notorious techniques involved modified bras.
the first step in Griselda blanco’s operation involves her lover and business partner ,bravo. purchasingcoke in Bolivia and Peru.
they then transported across the unguarded borders to colombia where it’s repackaged in blanco’s hometown of meddelin
as a women operating in a male – dominated world blanco’s stroke of genius is devising a new method to smuggle coke into the US.
she decides to conceal the drugs in garments ensuring they blend in with the women’s natural figure,blanco specifically selects colombian women as her mules .
and trains them to use their sexuality to distract border guards, encouragin the women to dress attractively and be flirtatious with customs and immigration agents.
blanco ensures the success of heroperation, each women carries a kilo of coke abourd flights to the US resulting in a net profit of 10,000 per mule.
to the average customs officer, blanco’s drug mules appear as just particularly voluptuous women making it unlikely they would suspect that they’re concealing coke in padded bras
it was a deceptively simple plan yet aremarkably effective in evading detection
the mules landed in new york,where Griselda’s underground network of colombian distributors eagerly awaited theit arrival
within hours the coke was distributed and made its way onto the streets.withing just a couple of years Griselda blanco and Alberto bravo flooded new york city with white powder.
they had so thoroughly dominated the market that even the mafia struggled to compete.
while Pablo escobar was still a low -level criminal , blanco was raking in over 10 million per week in drug profits.
as new york DEA agents invstigated the sudden influx of coke, they encountered a wall of terrified silence from those they questioned
the message on the streets was clear -crossing paths with Grisela blanco meant risking her formidable retaliation.
however even the strongest silence can crack
one of the DEA top agents robert knief, puerto rican american who grew up in brooklyn new york,
he was recruited by the DEA to tackle the colombian drug trade,his partner bob palomo was a spanish speaking narcotics expert.
after 3 years of investigation they finally caughta break, 2 years into their operation they arrested a small-time dealer who faced a 30 -year prison sentence
fearing the consequences the dealer agreed to cooperate with the government.he revealed that his suplier was a women named leela parada. parada worked within the organization as a distributor and the NYPD identified her early on as being involved.
robert knief and bob palomo realized that wihle parada might not be a big fish she could still provide vital information about the true masterminds of the distribution network.
to gather intel , they wired her apartment and listened to conversations.however this task wasn’t easy, they lacked sophisticated technology and spanish spoken was in comd.
colombian traffickers had their own slang and codes,making deciphering conversations challenging phrases like:
“somebody has left the funeral” could mean coke ws on route to new york.
while ” beautiful children with good bones” might refer to highquality coke with crystal
Not only did they speak in guarded terms and camouflage their conversations but they also used a jargon unique to the medellin neighborhood they grew up in making it difficult at times to understand the essence of their discussions.
to add to the challenge all the names used by the colombians were fake, they operated under aliases never revealing their real identities, they possessed excellent false IDs ranging from driver’s licenses to passports with multiple names associated with those documents.
however in the transcripts two code names appeared more frequently then others. carmen and gloria caban .these sisters were already serving time for coke trafficking and were considered veteran drug mules.
it was believedthat they had connections to key players in the colombia coke network robert visited the older sister carmen caban in prison but even from her secure cell she refused to talk.
robert made her an offer placement and witness protection and the chance to see her family again unable to resisst the offer caban revealed the names of 37 colombians involved in drug dealings in new york – alone.
finally she disclosed the name of the ruthless criminal mastermind behind it all-Griselda blanco
operation banshe was initiated to gather evidence against grisela blanco resulting in the preparation of 37 indictments ,however ,before federal authorities could take action blanco wanished….
thanks to her expertise in documents forgery acquired from Carlos Trujillo,blanco could effortlessly assumed a new identity at a moment’s notice.
upon learning of the imminent threat blanco and bravo swiftly abandoned their lives in new york boarded planes with new passports and disappeared back to colombia. however returning to colombia proved to be a fateful decision for blanco
the medellín of 1975 had changed significantly from the one she left behind , a new ruthless gangster was rising to power….
Pablo escobar.
blanco seemed like a novis in the world of crime. Escobar’s emergence would soon turn blanco’s life into a nightmare.
in 1975 Griselda blano faced a string of setbacks marking a particularly challenging year for the notorious drug queen pin as she attempted to reclaim territory taken by Pablo escobar.
blanco resorted to her ruthless methods including eliminating her rivals with hired assassins. Griselda belief that she needed to be even tougher than the toughest men in the criminal world
it’s even rumored that she pioneered the practice of murder by sacario here a gunman on a motorbike swiftly carries out an assassination before disapearing.
despite blanco’s formidable reputation she found herself constatnly trailing behind escobar no matter how tough she became she struggled to keep up with the relentless rise of pablo escobar
pablo escobar intensified his efforts against griselda blanco by hiring entire teams of himan to eliminate her associates . simultaneously he seized control of her drug laboratories tightening the squeeze on blanco’s operations.
as blanco faced mounting pressure in her professional life,her personal life also took a dark turn, her husband Alberto bravo began spending increasing amounts of time away from medellin allegedly in bogota
rumors swirled that Bravo was involved in an affair and contemplating leaving blanco to pursue his own ventures indenpendently.
things reach a boiling point when Griselda blanco discovered that their organization was missing millions of dollars.
in a parkinglot outside a popular club in rainy bogota she confronted her husband- demanding answers,however ,instead of explanations alberto bravo pulled out an Uzi and gunfire erupted shattering the night.
when the echoes faded blanco remained standing wounded but alive while bravo lay dead. this brutal act solidified blanco’s reputation as the black widow.without a hint of remorse she returned to meddellín that very night showing no signs of faltering in her ruthless pursuits.
within a year Griselda blanco remarried , this time to dario sepúlveda an associate of the notorious drug smuggling Ochoa brothers.
when they welcome a son in 1978 she named him michael corleon blanco after the protagonist of the godfather movies.
by the end of the 1970s blanco face a difficult decision,pablp escobar , now head of the medellín cartel had effectively taken control of her home city
virtually everyone in the drug business aligning with escobar,blanco encountered an opponent tougher and more ruthless than herself.faced with this reality she had two options
continue fighting and inevitably lose or flee.
wisely blanco chose the latter at the end of the decade she dawned her latest disguise boarded a plane and returned to the united states. however she didn’t go back to new york.
instead she set her sights on Miami. a city that was a brink of becoming a central hub in the global drug trade.
by 1980 colombia was responsible for producing a staggering 3/4 of all the coke worldwide a significant portion of this around 70 % was trifficked through south florida with more than 20 billion worth of product flowing into Miami annually
upon her retun to the US Griselda blanco wasted no time in rebuilding her distribution network however with Cuban gangs already controllng the streets of Miami she faced the daunting task of carving out a new niche for herself.
this endeavor led to a wave of chaos and violence with blanco at the center.
from 1980 to 1981 the so-calledcartel wars engulfed Miami, resulting the city having the highest
murder rate of any city in americas surpassing even medellín in it’s brutality.
at one point the number of corps in miami became so overwhelming that the city coroner had to resort to storing them in a refrigerated truck ,rented from burger king.
however Griselda blanco’s influence xtended beyond the realm of street warfare
with her three sons , dixton ,uber and oswado each managin distribution in different cities blanco’s drug empire flourished,they ere able to sell over 1,500 kg og coke every months.
bringing in massive amounts of money that needed to be laundered extensively,blanco invested a significant portion of her drug profits into miami’s real estate market.like many other coke drug lords of the time.
her investment contributed to an economic boom in the city.
despite losing control of medellín by the early 1980s Griselda was living in a luxurious florida mansion establishing herself as one of the wealthiest women in the United states.
in 1983 dario sepúlvida grew frustrated with gtiselda blanco’ sdecisison to keep their son michael out of school.
he took the boy back to medellín and while sepulvida was driving around the city with michael they were flagged down by police.
without warning, the officers opened fire fatally shooting sepúlvida and covering the car’s interrior with his blood.they then calmly retrieved the cryingmichael and returned him to Miami to be with his mother.
however , even orchestrating sepúlvas murder in front of their son wasn’t the most chilling action takingby Griselda
infamously she ordered a hit at the dadeland mall, resulting bullets being unleashed into crowds,killing two people andinjuring two others.
a young detective with the miami police is called to the shooting at the home of a colombian family -the lorenzos, however this is no ordinary homicide.
the lorenzos are known coke dealers and their killers sought revenge.
the scene is grizzly , the victims are tied up with belts and telephone cords,showing signs of torture they have been sut multiple times in the torso and head indicating a violent overkill.
the evidence points toa connection with coke living the DEA with no doubt that the black widow is back and morelethal then ever .
this brutal method of resolving problems with hit aligns with blanco’s notorious modus operandi but perhaps the most heart -wrenching tale , is that of johnny castro a mere 2-year old boy .
johnny was unlucky enough tobe in the car with his father when one of blanco’s hitmen on a motorbike open fire.
allthough the bullets missed the father two tragically struck johnny in the skull claiming his innocents life. chockingly when blanco learned of the toddler’s death she expressed satisfaction viewing it as a means to exact revenge on johnny’s father.
as miami entered the mid 1980s Griselda blanco the coke godmother was at the peak of her power she had become the first female cartel boss to a mass overa billion dollars.
firmly establishing her dominance in the coke market , feared by all ,blanco had successfully cornered the market and solidified her as a formidable force in the criminal underworld
here’s the reality of ordering the murders of countless drug traffickers,they leave behind frinds and family .
hwo are often armed and ready to seek revenge.Griselda blanco found herself in this precarious situation in 1984.
living ina city teaming with vengeful individuals eager to retaliate against her ,blanco had no choic to abruptly leave Miami and go into hiding in california. after just half a decade in the city.
for the DEA tracking down Griselda blanco had become an obsession ever since she fled back to colombia in 1975.
as it became evident that blanco had returnedto the US agents intensified their efforts utilizing informants ,wire taps and raids on coke dostribution centers.
finally ,blanco resurfaced in california and the DEA seized an opportunity.
in april 1983 ,bon palomo gets the opportunity he’s been waiting for .
while serving time for naroctics trafficing the DEA discovers a colombian named jerry Gomez who migh provide access to Griselda blanco’s inner family circle.
Gomez a businessman who knows blanco’s three son’s from her first husband carlos Trujillo had sold motorcycles to blanco’s sons in medellín,colombia
the plan is to release Gomez from his 10 year sentence and send him undercover
Gomez is to approach one of the blancos sons offering to laundre money for them across their national network.
The goal is toeventually locate blanco and her other two sons ,it’s a risky gamble as they won’t know if they can trust Gomez until it’s too late.
Gomez sets up a meeting in california with Griselda blanco’s youngest son.37 yyear old dixon. intially jerry manages to interest dixon in the propsition and Dixon seems ready to take the bait.
wearing a wire Gomez keeps his composure and dixon doesn’t appears to suspect he’s being set up dixon even reveals that his mother frequently moves between miama and LA.but he doesn’t provide further details.
at the end of the meeting the team isuncertain if they’ve done enough to lure dixon into revealing his mother’s whereabouts.
three weeks later Gomez received a call but it’s not from dixon blanco, it’s from the black widow herself, Griselda blanco has taken the bait marking a significant breakthrough in the investigtion
in 1984 Gomez met blanco at an LA hotel under the guise of assisting her with moeny laundering although blanco remained guarded in her conversation she let slip enough details about her criminal activities
for the DEA to beign preparingan arrest warrant jerry gomez thoug terrified managed to extract a crucial piece of information- the adress of los angeles distributor.
DEA wasted no time obtaining a warrant to seartch the property.
while reviewing the evidence gathered they stumbled upon a utility bill for an apartment in Irvine.DAE’s instincts sceamed that this Irvine apartment was precisley thekind o f residence blanco would choose to lay low. it was upscale yet not extravagant DAE knew they had to act swiftly before she vanished once again.
during a raid prompted by the utlity bill found Griselda blanco was tracked down to rhis anonymous apartment in california on february 17th 1985.
that evening her luck finally ran out as DEA agents burst in to findblanco shocked and suprised sitting in bed in the aftermath of her arrest blanco’s three eldest son were also apprehended and their distribution network was dismantled effectively ending their coke empire
on june 25th 1985 blanco found herself in the dock facing charges,2 weeks later the jury found of one count of conspiratcy to manufacture import drugs into the united state and distribution coke
the judge sentenced her to 15 years in prison, this marked the end of blanco’s reign as the coke queen pin.initally shefought using legal methods but after her final appeal was dissmissed in 1988
she resorted to illegal means.around this time there were claims that Grisela blanco devised a scheme to kidnapp john F kennedy Jr and demand her release from prison in exange for his freedom.however non of her plans came to fruition .
blanco never managed to orchestrate a prison breakout nor did she carry out any kidnappings of political figures sons, despige these failed attempts blanco’
story was far from over , even though Griselda blanco wasbehind bars the rage thatled her to flee miami persisted
many sought revenge against her but since they couldn’t reach her directly, they targeted those closest to her
first causaulty was oswaldo
first casualty was oswaldo,blanco’s son who was shot with a submachine gun at his welcome home party in medellín ,in 1992. shortly after his release from prison
blanco unable to attend the funural sent a threatening note read through a priest at the funural promising retribution for her son’s murder .
true to her word her other son dixon tracked down the shooter , torturing him to death,however soon dixon met a similar fate followed by blanco’s third son.
in 1994 blanco was extradited to miami to stand trial for the murders of the lorenzo family
and 2 year old johnny castro.prosecutors relied on the testimony of blanco’s former hitman but the case collapsed when it was revealed that the hitman had been engaging in inappropriate relations with two secretaries from the prosecutors office.
desperate to salvage something from the humilating debacle prosecutors struck a plea deal with Griselda. in exchange for pleading guilty to secondary murder she received a sentence of just 20 years including time served.
this meant she would walk free in 2004.
blanco accepted the deal and in early 21 century, the women who had once been the godmother of coke left prison behind and returned to columbia.
however her old underworld had changed drastically , Pablo escobar herformer rival had been dead for over a decade.
The Ochoa brothers were either imprisoned or out of the drug game
many of he enemies were gone and no one awaited her witha gun as she stepped off the plane. colombia’s Era of narco terror was over , although the country still grappled with civil unrest .
overall ,it was safer than it had been in decades,Griselda blanco settled into a quiet retirement in medellín, taking up residence inan apartment complex for the moderately wealhy.
over time she ganed weight , reportedly found religion and embraced a life away from her notorious past as the godmother of coke content to live in obscurity she believed she had been forgoten by both freind and foe alike
however on monday september 13rd 2012 her sense of security shattered when amotorbike pulled up outside a butcher shop in medellín.
a middle -aged man calmly entered the shop where blanco was buying meat whitout warning he pulled out a gun and shot her twice in the head before swiftly fleeing the scene on his bike disappearing into the morning traffic.
it becam apparent that there was still some enemies who had not forgotten the debt they owed Griselda blanco .
a bullet for her past crimes. blanco was 69 year old at the time of her death
on january 25th,2024 netflix debuted a six episode miniseries titled Griselda based on the life of Griseld Blanco.
Blanco wasn’t your average drug lord, she was a shrewd businesswomen who established one of the most lucrative drug cartels in history all while balancing thhe challenges of raising a family.