Griselda Blanco: The Cocaine Queen

Griselda Blanco grows up in the suburbs of Medellin, surrendered in the prostitution which she was prey at the age of 12. At the age of 18, she met her first husband, Carlos Trujillo, who made her three children before throwing out her. She returned on the sidewalk before knowing the man who would change her life, Alberto Bravo. Together, they emigrate to New York. (Griselda Blanco: The Cocaine Queen (AT THE PRICE OF BLOOD) (Volume 3))

In the American metropolis, they dashed into the traffic of cocaine. Griselda and Alberto imported several kilos of white powder every week which they sold to a kingpin of the American mafia. John Gotti, the mafia Godfather, contacted Griselda so that supplies him the goods. The spouses Bravo organized the delivery of these goods based on their Medellin childhood friends. Their business became so important. But the demand kept growing.

They had set up a high-tech industry to supply their customers. Other friends of Medellin came into play, including the notorious Pablo Escobar Gaviria, who were given the manufacturing and delivery to United States. The business worked perfectly until the day where the DEA agents put an end to the traffic of the Bravo couple. Griselda and Alberto had to leave the North American territory. She never forgave him this error. Because American authorities had been warned by the Colombian police which noticed the excessive lifestyle of Alberto Bravo and put him under surveillance.

Annoyed by the excesses of her husband, she decided to kill him. Griselda Blanco became them the leader of a new network, settling in Miami to sell his white powder. It was the beginning of the time of Miami Vice. One day Griselda Blanco, the same day, escaped an arrest and a murder attempted. She took refuge at her mother’s, Ana Lucia, which live in Los Angeles. She had quiet moments with her mother and her son, Michael Corleone. But Robert Palombo, the DEA agent who had failed to arrest her in New York, found her trail and arrested her in the bungalow where she lived. She was incarcerated in the prison for woman of San Francisco. Over there, she met a boy who had her great admiration, Charles Cosby. Became lovers, she made him her representative outside of the prison. But her right-hand man of Miami, Jorge Riverito Ayala, was arrested by the police. And to escape from the prison, he began to speak.

The American authorities had their information. Griselda Blanco was extradited towards Florida, where she was judged for murder, but during the trial, Charles Cosby revealed to the judge having had sexual relations with a secretary of the Prosecutor. The judgment, which had to be a mere formality, turned in a fiasco. Therefore, the judge negotiated with lawyers of Griselda to put an end to this trial, which took a bizarre turn. Griselda Blanco was extradited to her country of origin, Colombia. She was sixty years old.

Griselda settled down in Medellin in the chic area of El Poblado where she had bought a villa in a secure subdivision. It was for her, the only way to escape from those who wanted her dead. She lived there for several years before being shot to death on September 3, 2012 by two men circulating on a motorcycle and who put two bullets in the head. Griselda Blanco was almost 70 years old.

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Move over @MobWives -- the @CartelCrewVH1 is here #CartelCrew

The Cartel Crew docuseries is making its debut Monday at 8PM Central Time, on VH1, and the entire series will be set in the Magic City of Miami.

The premise of the program takes a deep look into the lives of eight individuals, all descendants of drug cartel bosses, who live in Miami. One of them is Michael Corleone Blanco, the youngest son of Griselda Blanco, also known as the "Black Widow." The narco-trafficking queen from Colombia ruled during the Miami Drug War of the 70s and 80s in South Florida.

“My family ran the cocaine business, my mother invented the modern-day cocaine trade industry as we know it,” Blanco said.

The series shot all over Miami and South Beach, with some portions in Medellin, Colombia that is centered around Blanco, who for 33 years, led a criminal lifestyle much like his mother, but quit after his mother’s assassination in 2012.

Blanco created “Pure Blanco” a personal clothing brand to prove to the world that he could lead a legal business life.

“My mother taught me life lessons, she was a savvy businesswoman so she was not only my council and my first true love but she was my mentor in business,” Blanco said. “I’m doing it for my family, I’m doing it for everybody who always said that I couldn’t be anything but a drug dealer.”

As Blanco and his close circle of friends including Katherine Flores, Nicole Zavala, Carlos Oliveros, Dayana Castellanos, Stephanie Acevedo and Marie Ramirez-D’Ariano navigate through adulthood and life in South Florida, the series highlights how these children of the drug cartel now live under the effects and legacy of their upbringing.

Thanks to Adriana Correa.

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Griselda Blanco, "Godmother of Cocaine" Killed by Motorcycle Hitman

A 69-year-old woman known throughout the drug world as the "Godmother of Cocaine" was gunned down by an assassin on a motorcycle in Colombia Monday, according to international news reports.

Griselda Blanco, once listed alongside Pablo Escobar as one of the "most notorious drug lords of the 1980s" by the Drug Enforcement Administration, was fatally shot as she left a butcher's shop in western Medellin Monday afternoon, according to a report by Univision and El Colombiano. Colombia's El Espectador reported authorities are looking for Blanco's killers and are investigating possible motives for the killing.

Blanco served nearly 20 years in an American prison on drug trafficking charges and was at one point tied to as many as 40 murders in the U.S., according to a 1997 Senate testimony given by then-director of DEA international operations Michael Horn. Horn said that Blanco ordered a Florida mall shooting in 1979 that left two dead and four injured, and she apparently enjoyed her line of work.

"To foster her reputation as the 'Godmother' of cocaine, [Blanco] named her fourth son Michael Corleone, after the fictional mob character portrayed in the movie 'The Godfather,'" Horn said.

Court documents filed in 1988, three years after Blanco was caught, detail the shadowy, decade-long hunt for the queenpin that involved federal agents chasing false identities and checking Miami hospitals for gunshot wound victims that matched Blanco's description. But she wasn't able to elude them forever and after being captured in 1985 in Irvin, Calif. and serving nearly two decades behind bars in America, Blanco was released from prison and deported back to Colombia in 2004.

The DEA referred all inquiries into Blanco's death to Colombian authorities, telling ABC News, "she served her time here." The Colombian National Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this report.

Thanks to Lee Ferran.

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