Griselda Blanco
Griselda Blanco Restrepo (February 15, 1943 – September 3, 2012), known as the Black Widow, was a Colombian drug lady of the Medellín Cartel, and in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade and underworld, during the 1980s through the early 2000s. She was shot and killed on September 3, 2012, at the age of 69.
Contents
- 1 Biography
- 1.1 Early life
- 1.2 Drug business
- 1.3 Arrest
- 1.4 Murder
- 2 Personal life
- 3 Popular culture
- 4 See also
- 5 References
- 6 Sources
- 7 External links
Biography
Early life
Blanco was born in Cartagena on the country's north coast. She and her mother, Ana Black, moved to Medellín when she was three years old. Upon arriving there, she adopted a criminal lifestyle. Blanco's former lover, Charles Cosby, recounted that at the age of 11 she 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 *aults of her mother's boyfriend, she ran away from home at the age of 19 and resorted to looting in Medellín until the age of 20.
Drug business
See also: Miami Drug WarBlanco was a figure in the drug trade from Colombia to Miami, New York and California.
In the mid-1970s, she illegally immigrated to the United States with false p*ports and settled in Queens, New York. She established a sizable cocaine business there and in April 1975, she 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 and settled in Miami in the late 1970s.
Her return more or less coincided with the beginning of very public violent conflicts that involved hundreds of murders and killings yearly which were *ociated with the high crime epidemic that swept the City of Miami in the 1980s. The struggle by law enforcement 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 the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (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 cannabis.
The distribution network, which spanned the United States, earned $80 million per month.
In 1984, Blanco's willingness to use violence towards anyone who displeased her led her rivals to make repeated attempts to **inate her. In an attempt to escape the hits that were called on her, she fled to California. Drug barons in Colombia allowed her access to killers then she would be given orders to tell the killers to murder a particular rival. She commonly told them that everyone in a dwelling where the target was located should be killed; at times she demanded that any living en*y (cats, dogs, goldfish, etc.) were also to be killed. Thus, several innocent people, even children, were killed along with the cartel's intended victim. These extra murders caused Miami to become the murder capital of America for years.
Arrest
On February 18, 1985 Blanco was arrested in her home by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and charged with conspiring to manufacture, import, and distribute cocaine. The case went to trial in federal court in New York City where she was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years.
While serving her sentence, she was charged with three counts of first-degree murder by the state of Florida. The prosecution made a deal with one of Blanco's most trusted hitmen, Jorge Ayala, who agreed to testify against her. However, the case collapsed due to technicalities relating to a phone sex scandal between Ayala and two female secretaries who worked in the state attorney’s office. Blanco pleaded guilty in 1998 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 2002, Blanco suffered a heart attack in prison.
In 2004, she was released and deported to Medellín. Before her murder in 2012, she was last seen in May 2007 at Bogotá Airport.
Murder
On the night of 3 September 2012, she bought $150 worth of meat at Cardiso butcher shop on the corner of 29th Street in Medellín. She died, aged 69, when she was shot in the head and shoulder by a motorcyclist who entered the shop.
Personal life
Blanco's first husband was Carlos Trujillo with whom she had three sons, Dixon, Uber, and Osvaldo, all of them poorly educated.
Blanco had her youngest son, Michael Corleone Blanco, with her third husband, Darío Sepúlveda. Her husband left her in 1983, returned to Colombia, and kidnapped Michael when he and Blanco disagreed over who would have custody. Blanco paid to have Sepúlveda **inated 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 mother 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 an arrest in May on two felony counts of cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine. He appeared on a 2018 episode of the Investigation Discovery do*entary series, Evil Lives Here, to recount his lonely childhood. In 2019, he was featured in the VH1 docuseries Cartel Crew, which follows the descendants of drug lords. He also runs a clothing brand, "Puro Blanco".
According to Michael, his mother became a born-again Christian.
In 2004, the heir to her legacy and to some of her vast fortune, goddaughter Ashley Uriquio, married Raymond LaFountain-Gotti, the mafioso and alleged son of the John Gotti Sr.
Popular culture
Blanco has been featured in multiple do*entaries, series, films, and songs, including several forthcoming projects.
- She features prominently in the do*entary films Cocaine Cowboys (2006) and Cocaine Cowboys 2 (2008; also written as Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' With the Godmother).
- In 2010, Florida rapper Jacki-O released a mixtape "La Madrina - Griselda Blanco".
- She is portrayed by the Colombian actress Luces Velásquez in 2012 television series Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord as the character of Graciela Rojas.
- In 2012, American rapper Westside Gunn formed a record label called Griselda Records, naming it after Blanco.
- In a television biographical film Cocaine Godmother, which premiered in 2018 on the Lifetime channel, Blanco is portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones.
- In 2018, she was mentioned in the chorus of NBA Young Boy's song "Slime Belief".
- In the 2018 song "Portland" by Drake featuring Quavo and Travis Scott, she is mentioned in the second verse.
- She is mentioned in the 2019 remix of song “Suge (Yea Yea)” by DaBaby featuring Nicki Minaj.
- As of 2020, there were plans to produce a film *led The Godmother, starring Jennifer Lopez as Blanco.
- Blanco is to be portrayed by the Colombian-American actress Sofia Vergara in a Netflix limited series *led Griselda, announced in November 2021.
- "Griselda Blanco", a song by Toronto rappers Pengz and Two two, was certified Platinum in Canada.
- A rap group and record label called Griselda in Buffalo, New York is named after Blanco.
See also
- List of people deported or removed from the United States
- Pablo Escobar
- Enedina Arellano Félix, another well-known female alleged cartel leader
References
Sources
- Smitten, Richard (November 1, 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 February 7, 2009. Retrieved October 3, 2010.
- Pablo Escobar and Colombian Narcoculture by Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky
External links
- Griselda Blanco pagina web Link may not work (last checked 2.April, 2017)
- Washington Post: Drugs
- Red Orbit: Cocaine 'Godmother' Released From Prison
- Female Scarface
- U.S. v. Griselda Blanco, 861 F.2d 773
- Griselda Blanco – War with Pablo Escobar | Video, Check123 – Video Encyclopedia