It has been estimated that she was responsible for up to murders while transporting cocaine from Colombia to New York, Miami and Southern California. Blanco was born in Cartagena, Colombia, on the country's north coast. Upon arriving there, she quickly adopted a criminal lifestyle. Blanco's former lover, Charles Cosby, recounted that at the age of 11, Blanco allegedly kidnapped, attempted to ransom and eventually shot a child from an upscale flatland neighborhood near her own neighborhood. Blanco was a major figure in the history of the drug trade from Colombia to Miami, New York, and California. They established a sizable cocaine business there, and in April , Blanco 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, settling in Miami in the late s. Blanco's return to the US from Colombia more or less coincided with the beginning of very public violent conflicts that involved hundreds of murders and killings yearly which were associated with the high crime epidemic that swept the City of Miami in the s. 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 s and early s.
Quick Facts
Who Was Griselda Blanco?
By Tom Leonard for the Daily Mail. She was just 11 when she killed her first victim, another child, and she never looked back, earning a dire reputation as the most bloodthirsty drug lord — male or female — in history. The matronly mother of four was linked to some murders. Her favourite possessions included a bone- china tea set that once belonged to the Queen and an altogether less regal gold-plated, emerald-studded submachinegun. Griselda Blanco was a barely 5ft tall Colombian cocaine 'queenpin' linked to murders with an empire stretching from Medellin to Miami and New York. Now, eight years after her enemies gunned her down while she was out shopping, her story is to be made into a new feature film starring Jennifer Lopez. However, barring a major rewriting of history, it would be hard to imagine viewers wanting to root for the Black Widow. For Griselda maintained her place at the top with ruthless efficiency and devilish ingenuity. She was the first to put hitmen on the back of motorcycles so that they could spray their victims with bullets and easily flee — a tactic copied by criminals across the world.
Navigation menu
According to some accounts, at age 11 she helped kidnap a boy, and, after his wealthy family refused to pay the ransom, she fatally shot him. Griselda Blanco married three times. She was a teenager when she married her first husband, and she split with her last husband in Her second husband, Alberto Bravo, introduced her to the cocaine trade.
She committed her first murder at 11, owned a submachine gun studded with emeralds and counted her three husbands among the people she allegedly killed. Legendary cocaine queen Griselda Blanco and her hair-raising life of crime will be featured in The Godmother , an upcoming biopic starring Jennifer Lopez. And why not? The diminutive Blanco had a capacity for killing that made her a standout even in the ultra-violent world of the cartels. The lurid details of her life are simultaneously repellent and riveting — a complex study of single-minded survival that saw her dominate the drug trade a generation ago. The damage inflicted on Blanco before she learned to give as good as she got includes a violent alcoholic mother, beatings and childhood sexual abuse. She was born in Colombia and grew up in a Medellin slum. Blanco was 11 when she helped kidnap a local boy and when his parents did not pay the ransom, she shot him dead.
