The Shocking True Story of Griselda Blanco

One woman is behind all this. Pull the right card, the whole house comes down. In this article, you will read about the rise and fall of Griselda Blanco beyond the movies. I mean, I don’t even think Miami Vice would be this foro.

Early Life

Giselda Blanco Restrepo was born on February 14th, 1943, in Kahena, Columbia. Growing up in the slums of Med Yin, she allegedly endured abuse from the boyfriends of her mother, Anab Blanco, a sex worker with substance use disorder, as well as from her clients. She lived in a neighborhood that was so uniquely criminal that it had been designated a tolerance zone, which is to say, a red-light district by the city, surrounded by crime and violence. Young Gelda also reportedly fell into this line of work.

In addition to committing petty crimes and pickpocketing to provide for herself, by some accounts, she escalated to kidnapping a boy close to her age from a wealthy neighborhood and killing him when his family refused to pay the ransom. This was another level of killing that cannot be explained by anything. I think in her background, I think it’s something in her soul, the queen of Queens.

Crimes

Only a couple of years later, Blanco met and married her first husband, Carlos Truo, who got her involved in the business of forging IDs and documents and smuggling immigrants over the border. Together, the couple had three children: Sons Osalo, Uber, and Dixon, and immigrated to New York to continue counterfeiting. Together, they organized the illegal smuggling of thousands of people into the United States. After separating, Blanco married her second husband, SL business partner Alberto Bravo, a drug smuggler who got her into the trafficking trade.

They started with marijuana but chose to move to what would become a more lucrative operation. Blanco had much bigger ambitions for overhauling the drug trade and building a cocaine empire in America. The highly in-demand substance was also easier to transport, so Blanco crafted undergarments that would seamlessly conceal it.

These garments would allow for the drugs to be smoother around the body; it would just look like a woman’s natural figure. She had successfully built an empire, and business was doing more than good. In 1974, she also managed to evade being captured by Operation Banshee, a joint operation between the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the New York Police Department (NYPD). They wondered if she’s gotten out of the cocaine business or maybe even been killed. But then in 1976, events a th000 miles away in Florida gave agents a brand new set of leads.

The Miami Drug War:

In the late 1970s, Blanco set up shop in Miami, Florida. She and the Medin Cartel were at the center of the city’s ongoing drug-related violence. On July 11th, 1979, two men were publicly murdered in what became known as the D-Land Massacre, marking the beginning of the Miami drug war. My mother always told me, you know what’s the best way to take care of your competition? Erase your competition. Then you have nobody to compete with.

Griselda killed Alberto Bravo in Bogota in 1975. In 1978, Giselda married Dario Seula, a sicario working for her, with whom she had one child. The same year, as a fan of mobster movies, particularly The Godfather, she named her fourth son Michael Leon Blanco, is an assassin himself, and even she was too much for him. He’s worried about the well-being of his son.

In 1983, Seula left Blanco, and when the two couldn’t come to a custody agreement, he kidnapped Michael. She allegedly had him killed, and their son witnessed everything. Gisela Blanco ordered the hit on her husband, and there’s no doubt in my mind that she didn’t care whether her son saw the assassination or not.

The Fall of the Cocaine Queenpin:

After over a decade spent investigating, DEA agent Bob Palumbo finally caught up with the elusive godmother in her Irvine, California home on February 17th, 1985. I said, “Hola, Gelda.” She looked at me with a very bewildered look. “No, mi Betti.” I said, “Nah, I don’t think so.” He triumphantly placed her under arrest, and she was charged with conspiracy to, quote, manufacture, import, and distribute cocaine, resulting in a 15-year sentence behind bars.

Griselda concocted a bonker scheme to have her cohorts kidnap John F. Kennedy Jr., in hopes of using the leverage to secure her release. Of course, the plan was unsuccessful. No leverage there, James. It’s Jimmy. I prefer James. She was also later charged with three counts of first-degree murder. The prosecution had a key witness, Jorge Rala, a former hitman for Blanco, lined up to testify.

However, he lost credibility after he was caught up in a scandal involving two secretaries who worked for the state attorney’s office. It was all over the Miami Herald. The state attorney’s office was embarrassed. They had to fire several people. In 1998, Blanco received a sentence of 20 years after she pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder. However, for health reasons, she was released in 2004 and deported to her native Colombia. We all believed at the time that she had made so many enemies in her professional life that as soon as she reached the tarmac on the airport in Columbia, that her lifespan was almost nil.

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Murder of Griselda Blanco

On September 3rd, 2012, the 69-year-old seemingly retired Griselda Blanco was killed in front of a butcher shop in Medin. She was assassinated using the same technique she had become notorious for ordering in a drive-by motorcycle shooting. The fact that she lasted so many years, that’s exceptional. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them. If you’re on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.

In the Media:

The 2006 release of Cocaine Cowboys introduced the mainstream to the prolific Griselda Blanco, followed up by a 2008 sequel. Her youngest and only surviving son, Michael, continues to appear in documentaries and TV specials about his mother’s legacy. He even joined the cast of VH1’s reality show, Cartel Crew. We know your childhood was different. How was your childhood? Regular? I can’t say it was.

Welsh actress Katherine Zeta-Jones starred as Blanco in Lifetime’s TV movie, Cocaine Godmother. Women are like spiders. They pull you into their web until you can no longer P. For years, a Blanco biopic with Jennifer Lopez in the role has been in the works.

The most recent portrayal is Netflix’s limited series, Griselda, starring Sophia Vergara, which hits the streamer on January 25th, 2024. After all that I have been through, I’m not going to give it away for nothing. However, according to Michael, the source material came from conversations between him and the producers that included quotes, and private details from his artistic literary work.