* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Victor Garber on his viral “And Just Like That” toilet scene: ‘I was delighted to be doing something ridiculous’ (exclusive) – yahoo.com

    Victor Garber on his viral “And Just Like That” toilet scene: ‘I was delighted to be doing something ridiculous’ (exclusive) – yahoo.com

    Pendulum Announce Homecoming 2026 Australian Tour – yahoo.com

    Pendulum Announces Thrilling Homecoming Tour Across Australia in 2026

    ITV Studios Launches New Entertainment Label – Global Bulletin – IMDb

    ITV Studios Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Label

    TS Entertainment bringing Malibu Jack’s to former Owensboro mall – Lane Report

    TS Entertainment Launches Malibu Jack’s at Former Owensboro Mall Location

    Jenny Han Dropped a Major ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg Revealing [SPOILER] – yahoo.com

    Jenny Han Just Unveiled a Huge ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg That Changes Everything [SPOILER]

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer With Emotional Song ‘Bones’ – yahoo.com

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer with Emotional New Song ‘Bones

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Health Technology Ecosystem – Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services | CMS (.gov)

    Discover the Future of Health Technology: Innovations Revolutionizing Patient Care

    Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

    Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

    Gene Associated With Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers Identified – Technology Networks

    Breakthrough Discovery Uncovers Gene Behind Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers

    Monkey Island LNG Picks ConocoPhillips’ Liquefaction Technology – Hart Energy

    Monkey Island LNG Selects ConocoPhillips’ Advanced Liquefaction Technology for Next-Gen Energy Solutions

    Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO) Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Yahoo Finance

    Credo Technology Group Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Expectations

    The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent – The Economist

    Exciting Opportunity: Become Our Next Science and Technology Correspondent!

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Victor Garber on his viral “And Just Like That” toilet scene: ‘I was delighted to be doing something ridiculous’ (exclusive) – yahoo.com

    Victor Garber on his viral “And Just Like That” toilet scene: ‘I was delighted to be doing something ridiculous’ (exclusive) – yahoo.com

    Pendulum Announce Homecoming 2026 Australian Tour – yahoo.com

    Pendulum Announces Thrilling Homecoming Tour Across Australia in 2026

    ITV Studios Launches New Entertainment Label – Global Bulletin – IMDb

    ITV Studios Unveils Exciting New Entertainment Label

    TS Entertainment bringing Malibu Jack’s to former Owensboro mall – Lane Report

    TS Entertainment Launches Malibu Jack’s at Former Owensboro Mall Location

    Jenny Han Dropped a Major ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg Revealing [SPOILER] – yahoo.com

    Jenny Han Just Unveiled a Huge ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Easter Egg That Changes Everything [SPOILER]

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer With Emotional Song ‘Bones’ – yahoo.com

    Liam Payne’s Cousin Ross Harris Honors Late Singer with Emotional New Song ‘Bones

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Health Technology Ecosystem – Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services | CMS (.gov)

    Discover the Future of Health Technology: Innovations Revolutionizing Patient Care

    Coherent Joins LLNL’s STARFIRE Diode Technology Working Group to Advance Inertial Fusion Energy – GlobeNewswire

    Coherent Partners with LLNL’s STARFIRE Team to Drive Breakthroughs in Inertial Fusion Energy

    Gene Associated With Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers Identified – Technology Networks

    Breakthrough Discovery Uncovers Gene Behind Deadly Heart Disease in Golden Retrievers

    Monkey Island LNG Picks ConocoPhillips’ Liquefaction Technology – Hart Energy

    Monkey Island LNG Selects ConocoPhillips’ Advanced Liquefaction Technology for Next-Gen Energy Solutions

    Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO) Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Yahoo Finance

    Credo Technology Group Surpasses Q1 Earnings and Revenue Expectations

    The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent – The Economist

    Exciting Opportunity: Become Our Next Science and Technology Correspondent!

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

The real-life rise and fall of Griselda Blanco—cocaine ‘godmother’ of the ‘70s

February 3, 2024
in Science
The real-life rise and fall of Griselda Blanco—cocaine ‘godmother’ of the ‘70s
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

History & Culture

How did a girl who grew up in poverty in Colombia become an international narcotics queenpin pushing $80 a million a month in cocaine?

ByParissa DJangi

Published February 2, 2024

The Godmother. The Black Widow. Queenpin. Griselda Blanco’s many aliases and nicknames speak to the notoriety she gained by heading a billion-dollar, blood-soaked drug empire that stretched from Colombia to the United States.

Now the subject of the Netflix series Griselda, Blanco’s life blurred the line between fact and fiction as she clawed her way to a position of power in a violent world. So, who was the real woman behind the myth?

Griselda Blanco’s rise

Blanco was born in Colombia on February 15, 1943. Her homeland would soon be torn apart by La Violencia, a period of mass violence and unrest which began on April 9, 1948, when popular politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated on the streets of Bogotá. By the time La Violencia ended a decade later, 200,000 people had been killed.

Blanco came of age against this backdrop of violence. As historian Elaine Carey pointed out in Women Drug Traffickers, Blanco and her contemporaries learned that “power frequently came through violent acts.”

Growing up in poverty in Medellín, Blanco initially didn’t have much power. She cut her teeth in the criminal world at the age of 11, when she allegedly kidnapped a local boy and murdered him after her ransom attempt didn’t pan out. In the coming years, she added pickpocketing and counterfeiting money to her resume.

Blanco met and eventually married Carlos Trujillo, who made a living falsifying papers and trafficking humans. The marriage produced three children but ended in divorce. And by the mid-1970s, Trujillo was dead. Some say Trujillo died from health issues; others claim Blanco was really behind his death.

Making white gold a family business

The disco boom of the 1970s sparked a growing market for illicit drugs like cocaine. By the middle of the decade, Colombia had emerged as the center of the cocaine trade, which brought opportunities for staggering wealth––and danger.

Together with Alberto Bravo, a drug smuggler and Blanco’s second husband, they built a cocaine empire based in New York. They relied on smugglers who wore specially designed undergarments to conceal drugs across international borders.

As the empire grew, Blanco’s relationship with Bravo deteriorated. Though the specifics of what exactly happened remain disputed, Bravo was killed in 1975. Blanco later claimed that she personally shot him in the mouth.

Bravo’s death cemented the image of Griselda Blanco as the “Black Widow,” a woman who got rid of her husbands by killing them.

At its peak, Blanco’s network pushed $80 million worth of cocaine every month. Her biggest markets included New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Blanco’s cocaine empire earned her the nickname “The Godmother,” Colombia’s answer to The Godfather’s Vito Corleone. Blanco seemed to lean into the mythology. After she gave birth to her fourth and final child in 1978, she named him Michael Corleone in honor of the film’s central character.

Blanco’s reign of terror in Miami

Violence was the foundation upon which Blanco built and maintained her empire. It was the oil that kept the engine of her network running––and it transformed Miami into a battlefield in the drug wars.

One of the most public attacks happened on July 11, 1979. Two men, likely at Blanco’s bidding, gunned down a cocaine dealer and his bodyguard in a liquor store at Miami’s Dadeland Mall.

In another Miami incident, Blanco ordered the murder of her associate Jesus Castro, who had reportedly kicked one of her children. But when her hitmen attempted to do the job in 1982, they mistakenly killed Castro’s two-year-old son Johnny instead.

According to Jorge Ayala, one of her assassins, Blanco welcomed the error. “At first she was real mad ‘cause we missed the father. But when she heard we had gotten the son by accident, she said she was glad, that they were even.”

Blanco’s children witnessed violence firsthand. In 1983, she probably ordered the death of her third husband, Dario Sepúlveda. He was killed in front of Michael Corleone, their five-year-old son, in Colombia.

In total, officials suspected Blanco’s involvement in no less than 40 murders across the U.S.

Blanco’s fall

Blanco managed to stay one step ahead of the law—for a while, at least. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration worked with informants to track her down and build a case against her.

Officials arrested her in Irvine, California, on February 17, 1985, and the resulting trial sentenced her to 15 years in prison. Nine years later, more charges came, this time for the murders of Johnny Castro and drug dealers Alfredo and Grizel Lorenzo.

Blanco was deported to Colombia in 2004, and lived quietly in El Poblado, Medellín’s wealthiest neighborhood for eight years.

On September 3, 2012, 69-year-old Griselda Blanco stepped outside a butcher’s shop in Medellín. Suddenly, two shots rang out––they had come from the gun of assassins on a motorcycle, which quickly fled the scene. Blanco collapsed. The woman who had forged a bloody path away from the poverty of Medellín’s streets ultimately died on them.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : National Geographic – https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/griselda-blanco-miami-cocaine-70s

Tags: Griseldareal-lifescience
Previous Post

More parents are using sleep aids for their kids. Experts say they shouldn’t.

Next Post

How to spend a day in Manchester

This Week in Science: Out-of-Sync Seasons, Anti-Aging Breakthroughs, And More! – yahoo.com

This Week in Science: Out-of-Sync Seasons, Anti-Aging Breakthroughs, And More! – yahoo.com

September 7, 2025
Diagnostic dilemma: Woman’s severe knee pain reveals ‘golden threads’ in her joints – Live Science

Mystery Solved: Woman’s Severe Knee Pain Traced to Shimmering ‘Golden Threads’ in Her Joints

September 7, 2025
PHOTOS: All the celebrities at Aryna Sabalenka’s US Open final victory – Tennis.com

PHOTOS: All the celebrities at Aryna Sabalenka’s US Open final victory – Tennis.com

September 7, 2025
Health Technology Ecosystem – Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services | CMS (.gov)

Discover the Future of Health Technology: Innovations Revolutionizing Patient Care

September 7, 2025
Vermont H.S. sports scores for Friday, Sept. 5: See how your favorite team fared – Burlington Free Press

Friday Night Showdowns: Vermont High School Sports Scores and Highlights from Sept. 5

September 7, 2025
Reformulation of general relativity brings it closer to Newtonian physics – Physics World

Reformulation of general relativity brings it closer to Newtonian physics – Physics World

September 7, 2025
Trump’s Economy Fails Arkansans as Unemployment Reaches Four-Year High – SWARK Today

Trump’s Economy Fails Arkansans as Unemployment Reaches Four-Year High – SWARK Today

September 7, 2025
Victor Garber on his viral “And Just Like That” toilet scene: ‘I was delighted to be doing something ridiculous’ (exclusive) – yahoo.com

Victor Garber on his viral “And Just Like That” toilet scene: ‘I was delighted to be doing something ridiculous’ (exclusive) – yahoo.com

September 7, 2025
Heroes on the Hill event addresses mental health for vets, first responders – CBS News

Heroes on the Hill: Tackling Mental Health Challenges for Vets and First Responders

September 7, 2025

Trump signs executive order creating ‘state sponsor of wrongful detention’ designation – CNN

September 7, 2025

Categories

Archives

September 2025
MTWTFSS
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930 
« Aug    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (810)
  • Economy (829)
  • Entertainment (21,706)
  • General (16,898)
  • Health (9,870)
  • Lifestyle (842)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (831)
  • Politics (835)
  • Science (16,039)
  • Sports (21,328)
  • Technology (15,809)
  • World (810)

Recent News

This Week in Science: Out-of-Sync Seasons, Anti-Aging Breakthroughs, And More! – yahoo.com

This Week in Science: Out-of-Sync Seasons, Anti-Aging Breakthroughs, And More! – yahoo.com

September 7, 2025
Diagnostic dilemma: Woman’s severe knee pain reveals ‘golden threads’ in her joints – Live Science

Mystery Solved: Woman’s Severe Knee Pain Traced to Shimmering ‘Golden Threads’ in Her Joints

September 7, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version