Griselda Blanco

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Lore & Background

Griselda Blanco Restrepo was born in Cartagena, Colombia, and moved to Medellín at age three, exposing her to a criminal lifestyle. Her former lover Charles Cosby recounted that at age 11 she allegedly kidnapped, attempted to ransom, and ultimately shot a child from an upscale neighborhood. She became a pickpocket before her teens and ran away from home at 19 to escape the sexual abuse of her mother's boyfriend, thieving in the city center until age 20. It is speculated she may have engaged in prostitution. She met her first husband Carlos Trujillo at age 13 and had three sons with him: Dixon, Uber, and Osvaldo. After divorcing Trujillo, she had him executed following an argument over a business deal. In 1964, she illegally entered the U.S. with fake documentation under an assumed name, settling in Queens, New York, with her second husband Alberto Bravo, a cocaine smuggler for the Medellín Cartel. They built a thriving drug operation until April 1975, when she was indicted on federal drug conspiracy charges along with thirty subordinates, prompting a flight to Colombia. She returned to the U.S. in the late 1970s to start a new drug operation in Miami.

Reader's Guide

Blanco was a key figure in establishing the cocaine trade between Colombia and large North American cities like Miami and New York, as well as dealers in California. Her distribution network earned $80 million per month. Her return to Miami coincided with the beginning of the Miami drug war, a period of hundreds of homicides per year during the 1980s, leading to the creation of CENTAC 26, a joint Miami-Dade Police and DEA operation. On February 17, 1985, she was arrested in her home by DEA agents and charged with conspiring to manufacture, import, and distribute cocaine. She was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While serving that sentence, Florida charged her with three counts of first-degree murder, but the case collapsed due to technicalities from a phone sex scandal between her trusted hitman Jorge Ayala and two secretaries at the state attorney's office. In 1998, she pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to run concurrently. In 2004, she was released after serving her full sentence and deported to Colombia. On September 3, 2012, an assassin on a motorcycle shot her twice in the head outside a butcher shop in Medellín, mimicking the assassination style she practiced during the Miami drug war.

Did You Know?

• Blanco's youngest son was named Michael Corleone Blanco after the character from The Godfather film series.
• She had her first husband Carlos Trujillo executed after an argument over a business deal.
• She shot her second husband Alberto Bravo in the head after accusing him of stealing millions.
• Her 1998 murder plea deal collapsed because of a phone sex scandal involving her hitman and two secretaries.
• Blanco became a born-again Christian in her later years, according to her son Michael.