If you’re watching the new Netflix series about the Colombian drug empire leader, you might be wondering how Griselda Blanco was caught.
Sofia Vergara stars and is the executive producer of Griselda which follows Blanco’s move to the United States from Colombia as she created one of the most powerful cartels in history and her great involvement in the Miami Drug War or the Cocaine Cowboy Wars. The show also stars Alberto Guerra, Christian Tappan, Martín Rodríguez, Juliana Aidén Martinez, Vanessa Ferlito, and Karol G making her on-screen debut.
“Most of the people know of Griselda as the ruthless, violent drug lord that she was,” Vergara said in a press release. “So we were very careful not to glorify her in the series. But we also wanted to take time to uncover the deeper story of Griselda, how beyond all odds, a poor uneducated woman from Colombia managed to create a massive, multi-billion dollar empire in a male-dominated industry, in a country that was not her own, through tactics that she devised that were both ingenious and cruel. The truth is that, as much as Griselda broke down barriers, she’s definitely not a hero and she should not be idolized.”
She continued, “So, what I loved about the project was getting to explore Griselda’s origin story, the making of a monster. When you then look at someone like June, a mother trying to fight a male-dominated culture in her workplace, I think more than drawing a comparison, you see more and more why Griselda’s self-justification is so wrong. Griselda and June are different sides of the same coin, the two different paths a person can take in order to take care of their family.”
So how was Griselda Blanco caught?
How was Griselda Blanco caught?
Griselda. Sofia Vergara as Griselda in episode 102 of Griselda. Cr. Elizabeth Morris/Netflix © 2023
Griselda Blanco was caught in Irvine, California on February 17, 1985, after she was tracked by DEA agents for about ten years. According to The United States v. Blanco, Blanco gave a false name to the DEA agents who arrested her, and she was found to be carrying false identification papers. While compared to the show, Griselda called the authorities to arrest her.
“She was pretty tough and standoffish, a typical Colombian move I would say, nonchalant, not really showing any real emotion, but when we put her in the car, I was in the backseat with her, and the other agent was driving. We drove up to Los Angeles, and when we got close to the courthouse is when she became visibly shaken,” retired Agent Bob Palombo told The Independent. “I mean, visibly shaken, she was shaking, and she grabbed my arm and you could feel her shaking and she turned and she threw up on my shoulder. Not a lot, it was mostly just bile, but she knew the proverbial s*** had hit the fan. And it was time for her to meet her accusers.”
Blanco was charged with conspiring to manufacture, import, and distribute cocaine. She was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While serving her sentence, she was additionally charged with three counts of first-degree murder by the state of Florida. She narrowly escaped the death penalty on a technicality when her right-hand man Jorge “Rivi” Ayala was discredited as a witness after being caught having phone sex with secretaries in the prosecutors’ office. Blanco pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, to run concurrently.
She was released in 2004 due to her health issues, and suffered a heart attack in prison in 2002. Blanco was deported back to Medellín, Colombia where she reportedly lived a quiet life. She was killed on September 3, 2012, in same assassination style that she was often credited with—shot down by two assassins on a motorcycle. “She wasn’t hiding. Not at all,” Palombo said. She was killed at the marketplace, the butcher shop, and according to my sources, she lived a well-respected life in the community. She was supposedly very benevolent to the downtrodden and that may have been a reason that a lot of people didn’t bother with her.”
Griselda is now streaming on Netflix.
A profile of bloodthirsty Colombian drug dealer Griselda Blanco, known as the “Black Widow” due to her penchant for killing off her lovers, recounts Blanco’s vicious crime spree
and the ten-year struggle to bring her to justice. Court records and interviews with Drug Enforcement Administration agents, federal attorneys, Miami police and Blanco’s acquaintances flesh out a portrait of a ruthless cocaine wholesaler whose “mules” (couriers) transported drugs in women’s undergarments and shoe heels. Her propensity for violence was legendary: she bragged of murdering her husband and claimed responsibility for Miami’s “Dadeland Massacre,” a shootout in a mall parking lot that disposed of one of Blanco’s creditors.
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