Colombia had several very feared mafia bosses, some more bloodthirsty than others. However, What stood out among them all was the time when Griselda Blanco dominatedsince her story is much scarier than the fiction of the film Netflix just made about her, with Sofía Vergara as the main character.
For many Colombians, reliving Griselda's life is not pleasantwho suffered from the scourge of the drug trade, even if it's a sugar-coated, Hollywood-style version.
Blanco had several nicknames. They called her “The Black Widow” because she murdered three husbands, or “The Godmother.”, due to its comparison to Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather, which he was passionate about. Also for supporting Pablo Escobar Gaviria in founding the Medellín Cartel.
A hard life from a young age that included abuse and violence, They made her a dominant woman, with a brutal and cruel personality. Griselda was one of the “pioneers” of cocaine trafficking to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s and had an established organization that Escobar later continued to use. She was eventually, like many traffickers, executed in cold blood by her rivals.
Griselda's mother became pregnant by her employer, a rich man who didn't want to recognize the baby. From that moment on, the woman lived as best she could in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta, in northern Colombia. When Griselda was 11 years old, they both moved to Medellin. The mother walked the streets of the city and the little girl began committing crimes with a gang she had founded. They engaged in petty theft and looting.
Griselda lived in a house where abuse occurred on a daily basis, as well as the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother's partner. This is how a violent and unfriendly personality emerged.
One day his band decided to have a big hit kidnapped a nine-year-old boy, son of a wealthy family. Since the parents did not pay the demanded ransom amount, Griselda demonstrated her leadership by shooting the minor. This is how the legend of the “patron saint” arose.
The Queen of Cocaine
At the age of 14, she left home because she was fed up with the abuse. And soon he showed his full potential in the criminal world. “Already fifteen years old, she was a fearsome criminal. The biggest criminals were after them.says Iván Gallo in his biography.
She formed a couple with Carlos Trujillo, a seductive visa forger who is much older than her. She had three children with this man, an alcoholic who eventually died of liver cirrhosis. A few months later she married Alberto Bravo, a small-time drug dealer who introduced her to the world of cocaine. They moved to New York, where they sold shipments of pure cocaine they had purchased from nurses at a Medellín clinic for ten times their value.
The front was the import and export business that Bravo had with his brother. Soon they had expanded the business and teamed up with some drug traffickers who would later form the Medellin Cartel.
In the 1970s, Griselda and Bravo lived in Queens, New York, and they devoted themselves to trafficking large quantities of cocaine and marijuana, which they purchased in Colombia, but also in Peru and Bolivia. Griselda had asserted her personality and was already “the patron saint,” while Bravo faded into the background. She was the one who innovated the way cocaine was introduced into the United States: she recruited several well-known prostitutes and used them as “mules.”
Back then, airport controls were very lax. So Griselda filled the bras of her mules and the false bottoms of her high-heeled shoes with cocaine.To. He also used other methods, such as placing counterfeit money in suitcases, dog cages or packages of underwear.
Maintaining the “leadership” role in a male environment was not easy., but it grew with ingenuity and brutality. He hired killers to eliminate rivals and anyone who opposed him. “Griselda used cruelty but also intelligence,” says Gallo.
Peak of power
By the mid-70s he was in complete control. One night in Medellín, angry because she found out her husband had stolen from her, she confronted him. A violent shootout ensued in which Bravo was shot twice in the head. His bodyguards were also killed.
Griselda was injured but survived. But she wasn't a woman who liked to be alone. So he looked for a partner and the one chosen this time was a drug trafficking heartthrob, Darío Sepúlveda.
They say he was the “great love of her life.”. With him she had her closest son: Michael Corleone Sepúlveda. He gave it that name because he loved The Godfather, the Francis Ford Coppola film.
At the time, his organization was based in Miami, where rivalries and confrontations with other drug traffickers were commonplace. But his company grew and expanded the cocaine trade to San Francisco and Los Angeles.. He smuggled more than 1.5 tons of cocaine every month.
At the same time, he founded a group of killers who were nicknamed “the gunmen”. They killed at close range and attacked on motorcycles and fled. At this time he met Pablo Escobar, who was involved in cockfighting and similar activities. Griselda liked the way this little criminal moved, so she recruited him into her organization.
Escobar showed that he was skillful and ambitious, and this cocaine trade was a perfect fit for him. After a period of testing, Griselda made him her partner.
Griselda's fall
Sepúlveda did not agree with the drug organization. It was very violent for him. Little by little he moved away and made the mistake of wanting to take his son with him. Griselda hasn't forgiven him.
He had him investigated and discovered that he was hiding with the boy in Medellin. He allowed himself to be arrested on a local path by a group of hitmen disguised as police officers. They took him down and executed him in front of his son. He then received Michelle Corleone in Miami and cried over her husband's death.
The deaths related to her company caught the attention of U.S. authorities, who soon brought her into the spotlight. She managed to escape several times but was arrested in California in 1985. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but refused to be intimidated. He spent a fortune maintaining his privileges and securing his extradition to Colombia.
In prison, from where he continued to run the organization, She met her fourth husband, Charles Cosby, a small-time human trafficker who came to her by writing letters expressing his admiration. He began running the business from the outside under her supervision, but made several mistakes and Griselda had him killed. The hitmen failed and Cosby turned to the US police, where he gave details of his wife's crimes.
Griselda was imprisoned for 19 years. She was released in 2004 at the age of 61 and decided to return to Medellín, where she settled in a mansion. His life had changed. He tried to live peacefully. He told stories and drank to anyone who would listen. It seemed as if he would spend the rest of his life in peace.
But many in Colombia hated her. In 2012, at the age of 69, two hitmen on a motorcycle like hers were waiting for her as she left shopping at a butcher shop He was shot twice in the head. This is how “The Queen of Cocaine” ended.