Griselda Blanco

Griselda Blanco
The last picture of Griselda Blanco "Cocaine Queen" or "Godmother" in Medellin, Colombia
Born	(1943-02-15)February 15, 1943 Cartagena, Colombia[1]
Died	September 3, 2012(2012-09-03) (aged 69) Medellín, Colombia
Nationality	Colombian
Other names	La Dama de la Mafia (The Mafia Lady) The Godmother The Black Widow
Criminal penalty	15 years and $25,000 fine
Criminal status	Deceased
Children	4 sons
Conviction(s)	Conspiracy to manufacture, import into the United States, and distribute cocaine

Griselda Blanco (February 15, 1943 – September 3, 2012), known as La Madrina, the Black Widow, the Cocaine Godmother and the Queen of Narco-Trafficking, was a drug lord of the Medellín Cartel and a pioneer in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade and underworld during the 1970s and early 1980s. She is the founder of the Medellín Cartel and the mentor of Pablo Escobar.^[2]

Biography

Blanco was born in Cartagena, Colombia, on the country's north coast. She and her mother, Ana Lucía Restrepo,^[3] moved to Medellín when she was three years old. In the documentary film Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' with the Godmother, Blanco's former lover, Charles Cosby, recounted how Blanco, at age 11, allegedly kidnapped, tried to ransom, and eventually shot a child from an upscale flatland neighborhood near her own slum neighborhood.^[1][4]

By her preteens, she had become a pickpocket, and at the age of 14 she ran away from her allegedly physically abusive mother. Blanco resorted to prostitution for a few years in Medellín,^[1][4] until age 20. She married her first husband, Carlos Trujillo, and bore three sons: Dixon, Uber, and Osvaldo.^[5] In the mid-1970s, Blanco and her second husband, Alberto Bravo, emigrated to the United States, 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, at that time the biggest cocaine case in history. She fled to Colombia before she could be arrested, but in the late 1970s she returned to Miami. This is what led to Blanco's mass murders.^[1][4]

She was known as the first Colombian drug lord to export cocaine to the United States, and the person who taught the minions of the seventies, after killing several rivals, even one of her own husbands at short range.

Blanco was involved in much of the drug-related violence known as the Cocaine Cowboy Wars that plagued Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when cocaine supplanted marijuana.^[6]

Her distribution network, which spanned the United States, brought in US$80 million per month.^[1] 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. She was suspected of masterminding over two hundred murders.

In 1984, Blanco's willingness to use violence against her Miami competitors, or anyone who displeased her, led her rivals to make repeated attempts to kill her. She moved to California to escape the assassination attempts. On 20 February 1985, she was arrested by DEA agents in her home. Held without bail, Blanco was sentenced to more than a decade in jail.^[7] She continued to run her cocaine business while in jail. By pressuring one of her lieutenants, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office obtained sufficient evidence to indict her for three murders. However, the case collapsed, largely due to technicalities, and Blanco was released from prison and deported to Colombia in 2004.^[1] Before her death in 2012, she was last seen in Bogota Airport in May 2007.^[4][8]

Blanco had four sons, three of whom were killed in Colombia after being deported following prison sentences in the U.S. Blanco bore her youngest son, Michael Corleone Blanco by her lover Darío Sepúlveda, who left her in 1983, returning to Colombia, kidnapping Michael when he and Griselda disagreed over who would take custody. Blanco paid to have Sepulveda assassinated in Colombia, and her son returned to her in Miami.^[4][9] 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."^[9]

In 2012, her last living child, Michael Corleone Blanco, was under house arrest after a May arrest on two felony counts of cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.^[10]

Death

Blanco lived in El Tesoro area in El Poblado. She was killed by two sicarios (assassins) as she walked out of a Carnicería Cardiso in barrio Belén in Medellín, at 3:00 pm on Monday September 3, 2012.^[2][11][12] The Miami Herald cites El Colombiano newspaper reports that a man performed a drive-by shooting on a motorcycle and shot her twice in the head, executing her in the type of motorcycle assassination she has been credited with inventing. According to a witness interviewed by The Miami Herald, the killer was a man in his 40s or 50s who was calm and composed throughout the attack. She was transported by la Unidad Intermedia de Belén where minutes later she lost her life.^[13][14][15]

In popular culture

In film

• 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).

In music

• 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.^[16]
• On his song "See No Evil" (2012) featuring Kendrick Lamar, rapper Game says, "Karma catches up to all you head honchos, two dome shots in that head, Griselda Blanco."^[17]
• On his song "Pain" (2012) featuring Future, rapper Pusha T says, "Put your freedom over failure, tryna find my Griselda, might as well, they gon' nail ya." The song is about world behind drug dealing.
• Rick Ross is featured in the song "Believe It" on Meek Mill's album, Dreams and Nightmares (2012), and in his verse he says, "Don't want no beef, I may crack ya taco/I'm screamin' Rest in Peace, Griselda Blanco".
• On Meek Mill's song "The Plug" from Self Made Vol. 3, "papi" says, "Griselda Blanco lives...Griselda Blanco lives", in the outro.
• On Gucci Mane's Pablo track featured on his Trap God mixtape, Guwop Mentions "R.I.P. Griselda Blanco"^[18]
• Yeasayer's Griselda, featured in Odd Blood, is about her.^[19]

In print

• Blanco played a significant role in Jon Roberts' book American Desperado (2011).^[20]

In television

• Blanco was featured in episode 2 of Deadly Women, season 4, titled "Outlaws" (first airdate 19 August 2010).
• Blanco's character, Graciela Rojas, is portrayed by Colombian actress Luces Velasquez, in the Colombian TV series Escobar, el patrón del mal (2012).
• Blanco was featured in episode 3, season 1 of Gangsters: America's Most Evil (2012).

Sources

• Smitten, Richard (1 November 1990). The Godmother: the true story of the hunt for the most bloodthirsty female criminal of our time. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-70193-2. Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 3 October 2010. 

References

External links

• Cosby, Charles. "Charles Cosby: From Early Childhood to Cocaine and Hustlin’". Charles Cosby. theblogunion.wordpress.com. 
• Griselda Blanco pagina web
• Washington Post: Drugs
• Red Orbit: Cocaine 'Godmother' Released From Prison
• Female Scarface
• U.S. v. Griselda Blanco, 861 F.2d 773