Meet Griselda Blanco, The ‘Queen Of Cocaine’ Who Ruled Her Drug Empire With An Iron Fist
By Daniel Rennie | Edited By John Kuroski
Discover the real story of Griselda Blanco, the Colombian drug trafficker known as the “Cocaine Godmother” who ruled the Miami underworld in the 1970s and ’80s.
Known as the “Cocaine Godmother” and the “Black Widow,” Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco entered the cocaine trade in the early 1970s — when a young Pablo Escobar was still boosting cars. While Escobar would go on to become the biggest kingpin of the 1980s, Blanco was perhaps the biggest “queenpin”
It’s unclear how closely she was linked to Escobar, but she is said to have paved the way for him. Some believe that Escobar was Blanco’s protege. However, others have disputed this, claiming that the two were deadly rivals.
What is known for certain is that Griselda Blanco first made a name for herself as a trafficker in the 1970s. And then in the 1980s, she became a major player in the Miami drug wars. During her reign of terror, she made countless enemies throughout Colombia and the United States.
And she would do anything to eliminate them.
From shopping mall shootings to drive-by motorbike hit squads to home invasions, Griselda Blanco was one of the deadliest women in the entire Colombian cocaine trade. She was believed to have been responsible for at least 200 murders — and potentially upwards of 2,000.
“People were so afraid of her that her reputation preceded her wherever she went,” said Nelson Abreu, a former homicide detective in the documentary Cocaine Cowboys. “Griselda was worse than any of the men that were involved in [the drug trade].”
Despite her brutality, Griselda Blanco also enjoyed the finer things in life. She had a mansion on Miami Beach, diamonds purchased from Argentina’s First Lady Eva Peron, and a fortune in the billions. Not bad for someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Cartagena, Colombia.
Who Was Griselda Blanco?
Born in 1943, Griselda Blanco started her life of crime at an early age. When she was just 11, she allegedly kidnapped a 10-year-old boy, then shot and killed him after his parents failed to pay a ransom. Soon, physical abuse at home forced Blanco out of Cartagena and onto the streets of Medellín, where she survived by pickpocketing and selling her body.
At age 13, Blanco got her first taste of turning crime into a big business when she met and later married Carlos Trujillo, a smuggler of undocumented immigrants into the United States. Though they had three sons together, their marriage didn’t last. Blanco would later have Trujillo killed in the 1970s — the first of her three husbands to meet a brutal end.
It was her second husband, Alberto Bravo, who introduced Griselda Blanco to the cocaine trade. In the early 1970s, they moved to Queens, New York, where their business exploded. They had a direct line to the white powder in Colombia, which took a hefty chunk of business away from the Italian Mafia.
With business booming, Bravo returned to Colombia to restructure the export end. Meanwhile, Blanco expanded the empire in New York.
But in 1975, everything fell apart. Blanco and Bravo were busted by a joint NYPD/DEA sting called Operation Banshee, the largest at the time.
Before she could be indicted, however, Blanco managed to escape to Colombia. There, she allegedly killed Bravo in a shootout over missing millions. According to legend, Blanco pulled a pistol from her boots and shot Bravo in the face, just as he fired a round from his Uzi into her stomach. However, others believe it was Pablo Escobar who killed her husband.
Whichever account is true, Griselda Blanco’s autopsy would later reveal that she indeed had a bullet scar on her torso.
The Dramatic Rise Of The “Cocaine Godmother”
Upon the death of her second husband, Griselda Blanco earned a new title: the “Black Widow.” She was now in full control of her drug empire.
After the bust, Blanco still sent cocaine to the United States while running her business from Colombia. In 1976, Blanco allegedly smuggled cocaine aboard a ship known as the Gloria, which the Colombian government had sent to America as part of a bicentennial race in New York Harbor.
In 1978, she married husband number three, a bank robber named Dario Sepulveda. That same year, her fourth son Michael Corleone was born. Having taken the “Godmother” mantle to heart, she apparently thought it fitting to name her boy after Al Pacino’s character from The Godfather.
She then set her sights on Miami, where she would later earn her notoriety as the “Queen of Cocaine.” An early pioneer of the Miami-based cocaine trade, Blanco used her tremendous skills as a businesswoman to get the drug into as many hands as possible. And for a while, it paid off.
In Miami, she lived lavishly. Homes, expensive cars, a private jet — she had it all. Nothing was off-limits. She also hosted wild parties frequented by all the major players of the drug world. But just because enjoyed her newfound wealth didn’t mean that her violent days were behind her. According to some sources, she forced men and women to have sex with her at gunpoint.
Blanco also became addicted to smoking large amounts of unrefined cocaine called bazooka. This likely contributed to her increasing paranoia.
But she did indeed occupy a dangerous world. In Miami, there was increasing competition among various factions, including the Medellín Cartel, which was flying in planeloads of cocaine at the time. Soon, conflict erupted.
To Be Continued