S8-E77 Griselda Blanco (a.k.a. "Cocaine Queen of Miami")

Murder + Horrific = Murderific.

Griselda Blanco was one of the most powerful and ruthless drug lords in history. She left a trail of dead husbands and ordered over 250 assassinations. We cover her rise from an impoverished child to a feared crime lord who made billions of dollars from the drug trade in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Sources:
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/861/773/138342/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/04/godmother-cocaine-shot-dead-colombia

https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/04/world/americas/colombia-elderly-ex-trafficker-killed/index.html

https://allthatsinteresting.com/griselda-blanco-la-madrina

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Murderific true crime podcast hostedand created by Bernadette from the state of
Maine. We have everything a truecrime connoisseur could ask for. Remember,
murder plus horrific equals Murderific. Oneof the narcotic trade industry pioneers in the

(00:44):
nineteen seventies and eighties was a womannamed Griselda Blanco. She became extremely wealthy
with her drug smuggling techniques and wasbehind hundreds of murders. Some murdered were
drug trafficking rivals or basically anyone whocrossed her, including her husbands. In
this episode of murder Iffic, Rebeccaand I discussed one of the most dangerous,

(01:07):
richest, and powerful drug kingpins,a female criminal named Griselda Blanco,
the cocaine Godmother. Welcome to myguest, Rebecca. I. We have
a little bit of news for youguys. This episode number seventy seven is

(01:29):
our next to last ever Murderific episodes. How do you feel about that,
Becca? I feel like you didn'twarn me that you were going to say
that, and I won't cry.Yeah, So June is our last episode
ever. We've just come to thatdecision. I'm a little bit burnt out

(01:49):
of some health issues, and it'sbeen a good run. It's been five
years, which is amazing. Ithink it's amazing that you've kept this podcast
going so long, like you fuckingrule. Thanks so yeah, leave us
some love after this episode. Rebeccaand I worked really hard on this over

(02:12):
the last five years, and Rebeccahas a cold for her last episode.
I'm really excited to leave you guyswith this parting memory. All right,
I guess we can get started onthe last episode that Becca and I are
going to do ever, and we'retalking about Griselda Blanco, who was a

(02:35):
very powerful and rich, short,and you might say a little bit plump
woman. She was murderous and terrifying. You may have heard the expression for
a woman to get half as muchcredit as a man, she has to
work twice as fucking hard and shehas to be twice as smart. And
that is what Griselda did. Shewas basically a super villain of the drug

(02:59):
trade in Miami during the eighties.And we'll let Becca get started. We'll
first talk about some of her marriagesto set the stage. Griselda's first husband
was Carlos Trehilo. Carlos and Griseldahad three sons, Dixon, Uber and
Oswaldo. Her first husband was asmuggler of undocumented immigrants into the US.

(03:22):
The marriage didn't last. In thenineteen seventies, Griselda had her first husband
killed because of a business dispute.Her three children from this marriage were all
executed due to the drug world lifestyle. Griselda's second husband was a drug trafficker
named Alberto Brava. They moved toNew York from Columbia and were working in

(03:43):
the cocaine trade. In the midseventies in the US, especially in urban
areas, everything was moving from marijuanato cocaine, especially among rich people.
They began making lots of money movingcocaine from Columbia into the States. In
nineteen seventy five, Griselda found millionsmissing from their money. She believed her

(04:03):
husband Brava did it. She pulleda pistol and tried to murder him,
but he had six bodyguards who pulledout oozies and Griselda lived with a gunshot
wound to her stomach. It wasa gun battle, though, and the
six bodyguards died along with her secondhusband, leaving her alone to run the
cartel they had built together. She'sprobably what she wanted. She wanted him

(04:27):
dead and she could have the businessto herself. So she herself got a
gunshot wound, but she lived.If millions are missing by someone's got hay.
Griselda one to never give up.Married for a third time, did
Dario Sepulveda, and he was abank robber. They had a son named

(04:49):
what else, Michael Corleone Blanco,and she did name him after the Godfather
movie because why why wouldn't she It'sa good name with solid, solid name.
In nineteen eighty three, her husbandleft her and he kidnapped their son
and took him to Columbia. Thatdidn't stick, as Griselda had her third

(05:12):
husband assassinated and her son, MichaelCorleone, returned back to her. Michael
ended up having a lonely childhood becausebefore he had even grown up, his
older three brothers had been murdered.And did I mention he witnessed his dad
being murdered, So you can seewhy this guy kidnapped his son because he
knew what kind of life he wasgoing to have. But that didn't end

(05:38):
well for him. No, Ican see him possibly trying to take him
away for maybe a little bit ofa better life. But that's horrific,
and that is her marriage history.And there's so many moving parts to Griselda's
life story that I decided to breakthe story into parts instead of being in
chronological order. We will next talkabout Salda's upbringing. She was born in

(06:01):
February fifteenth, nineteen forty three,in Columbia on the North Coast. She
grew up very hard and fast.She had to. She and her mom
lived in Medeline, which was anextremely dangerous area in Columbia, once being
called the most dangerous city in theworld due to gangs, drug traffickers,
and cartels, including one of PabloEscobar's cartels. Back to Little Griselda,

(06:27):
as we know, some monsters aremade. Her mother, Anna Black,
was a sex worker. The familywas very impoverished. They had nothing.
Anna's boyfriend began sexually assaulting her,raping her when she was a child.
It's been told at age eleven,Griselda kidnapped a ten year old boy whose
family had some money to try toget some ransom. Money the family couldn't

(06:49):
or wouldn't pay. Some kids gaveGriselda a gun and dared her to shoot
the boy, which she did betweenhis eyes. That is some cold blooded
stuff right there. So I heardthis story told that she told the family
she wanted ransom money, and thefamily knew who she was, and they

(07:10):
didn't believe that an eleven year oldgirl had kidnapped their child, so they
were like, we're not paying andthen she killed the child. So think
about this. By the time shewas ten or eleven, she had to
do sex work to eat, andshe was pickpocketing, and she had murdered
a kid. And by the timeshe was thirteen, she was with her

(07:31):
first husband, who we already talkedabout. Next, we will go over
the ruthless career of Griselda. Itbegan when she was with her second husband,
Alberta Brava. They moved to Queen'sNew York, USA, and they
began selling cocaine. New York wascontrolled by the Five Mafia families, but

(07:51):
the Colombians had the advantage of adirect link to the product cocaine, and
they started small with Griselda's of womenhiding cocaine in their bras and underwear.
Griselda herself came up with lingerie withhiding spots. This was like pretty new
or pretty new invention, and sothese bras and underwear had secret compartments for

(08:15):
cocaine. The women would hide cocainein suitcases or on themselves, or even
drug mules. She used a lotof people as drug mules back then,
and they would get on flights inthe US, and it was easy back
then. Anybody could go in aflight, anybody could traffic cocaine. Soon
pilots themselves were flying it into theUS directly mass amounts, and Griselda and

(08:39):
her husband were making millions of dollarsa month. The DA was already onto
her operation, and they got anarrest warrant for Griselda on federal drug conspiracy
charges, and she fled. Shewent right back to Columbia, where she
murdered her second husband. By theway, so now Griselle is running this

(09:00):
multimillion organization on her own in anothercountry. So she went to a different
country. I think she changed hername just so she wouldn't be arrested.
But she had enough connections to goback to Columbia and continue working. She
waited a few years and simply movedback to Miami in the late nineteen seventies
to continue making her fortune while inColombia. Like we said, she used
fake names and false documents. Griseldalived large in Miami. She had a

(09:26):
home, a penthouse in Biscayne Bay, Miami, And if you've ever been
in Miami, there's this place calledMillionaire's Row, and that's where she used
to live. She had another palacein Miami. She had many cars,
She had things like diamonds that belongedto Argentina's first lady, Eva Perrone.
She had a private chet. Allof her friends were celebrities. She was

(09:50):
loaded. In nineteen eighty seventy percentof all the cocaine that entered the US
was coming through Florida, and Griseldawanted to pie all for herself, so
she would just kill any rival drugdealers. Anything could get you killed.
If you lost her drugs, youwould get killed. If you bought drugs
from her and she didn't get paid, you would have a hit put out
on you. If she owed someonemoney and she didn't want to pay,

(10:13):
she would just have you killed byher hitmen, and she had many on
her pay roster. Her hired killersdidn't just kill the one person. They
were after Griselda would say anyone inthe vicinity, she wanted any pets,
kids, or anyone there murdered.Also, that is bonkers, not the
pets. She's kind of a hardass. She's really like a psychopath, business

(10:39):
oriented psychopath. Yeah, at aman's level. Griselda was now a billionaire.
She was making up to eighty milliona month and had thousands of employees
coast coasts and out of the countryas well. She was also bisexual and
had many coke filled orgies. Becauseone of Griselda's guilty pleasures was smoking unrefined
cocaine, that made her very paranoid, which is not the best combination for

(11:03):
a drug dealer. She was paranoidat these orgies, and couples were made
to have sex at gunpoint. Soshe was getting high just like the old
way, like Whitney Houston used todo and Richard Pryor, like she was
smoking cocaine that way. But shewould get really paranoid and she would like
use her gun and make people havesex with her at gunpoint. Oh my

(11:26):
god, she just was doing whateverthe fuck she wanted. Unhinged, Griselda
was determined to hold onto her reignas the Cocaine Godmother. Between nineteen seventy
nine and nineteen eighty four, Miamibecame increasingly violent and was the scene of
many drug rival shootouts even in broaddaylight. There was a shooting at the

(11:46):
Daidland shopping mall where Griselda's hit menpulled up with their armored van, shooting
everyone in sight. On the sideof the van was a sign that said
happy time, complete party supply.And the van was made with quarter inch
steel gun ports in it to shootmultiple weapons, and the sides of this

(12:07):
van were covered a quarter inch thickwith steel. One technique that has been
said that Griselda came up with herselfwas effectively murdering her rivals using motorbikes,
so people would just drive up,shoot your victim, and speed off.
I mean, you can travel incloser spaces and get away faller. Yep,
that's smart. So that was heridea. You pretty much see scenes

(12:31):
like that in crime action movies allthe time. Now. One thing that
I read was that because this happenedso much that in Colombia they made it
illegal to drive by two people ona motorbike near any government building. They
made it illegal. How do youenforce that. I don't know it's smart,
but I could not even imagine tryto enforce that. All of the

(12:54):
rival gangs were making the homicide ratego sky high in Miami, and the
Cuban and Columbia drug dealers runners werenamed the Cocaine Cowboys. By nineteen eighty
one, Miami was the murder capitalof the world. With some direct blame.
Dude took Griselda and she wouldn't bestopped. She was always planning who
to kill next. She was oneof the richest drug dealers of all time,

(13:18):
and it still wasn't enough for her. She had a hole inside that
made her want more drugs, killmore people, get more money, and
nothing would stop her. There aretwo Cocaine Cowboys documentaries that are so good.
Yeah doesn't talk about Griselda, Ohyeah. The first one is pretty
much strictly about her, and ithas like her younger boyfriend that she used

(13:39):
to run with. It's really reallyentertaining as murderers as murders go, Little
did Griselda no. She had madean enemy among many when she had killed
her second husband. One of herdead husband's nephews was named Jamie Brava.
He wanted revenge. He started workingwith the United States FEDS in order to

(14:01):
get her. Blanco knew many peoplewanted her dead. Soon her house was
being watched. She would sit forhours using cocaine with her watchdog, a
German shepherd named Hitler. Being paranoid. I like how I wrote that she
would sit for hours using cocaine withher watchdog. I think like Hern her
dog were just doing coke together,and being paranoid is a bit redundant.

(14:26):
Soon she moved to California around nineteeneighty four to get some of the heat
off of her But in nineteen eightyfive, on February twentieth, the US
government kicked in her door. Shewas forty two years old. She ran
upstairs to her bedroom. Grisel deBlanco was handcuffed and held in prison without
bail. She was charged with narcoticstrafficking. I heard a story about when

(14:48):
she was arrested, and it saidthat she was in bed reading her Bible.
Oh what, which I find veryhard too. Her bible that had
like a gun cut out the insideof it, their drugs in there,
had a dog, Hitler. Griseldawould be sentenced to twenty years in prison,
but she still kept running her businessfrom inside with the help of her

(15:09):
son and a crack dealer named CharlesCosby from Oakland, California. Cosby and
Griselda became lovers and got to haveintimate relations because she would just pay off
the prison guard staff. The Fedsreally wanted to try Griselda and murder charges
and one of her trusted hit menwas going to be a witness against her.
Griselda knew that he had all ofthis info on her, so she

(15:33):
actually had a mental breakdown in prisonover this. She knew she was in
trouble, but the case fell throughbecause of a phone sex scandal between a
star witness and some of Miami Dade'sAttorney office secretaries. Basically, the case
against Griselda fell apart, and intwo thousand and four, the Black Widow
was released and sent back to Columbia. She was deported. When you have

(15:58):
that many connections, she could havepaid these girls to have phone sex with
some of the attorneys, Like,you have so many connections to pull strings.
Yeah, I mean she spent sometime in prison, but I mean
she murdered hundreds of people, andI don't think she was ever convicted of
murder at all. It just talkedabout the narcotics charges. In twenty twelve,

(16:18):
Griselda Blanco, who was trying tolive a quiet life, died as
she lived at age sixty nine.She was outside of Butcher's shop in Columbia
and she was shot twice in thehead by a motorcycle drive by shooting.
No one was ever charged for hermurder, and she had made so many
enemies in her life, it reallycould have been anyone. She was found
lying in a pool of blood onthe ground. Her pregnant daughter in law

(16:41):
was with her and she was unharmed. Griselda Blanco will always be remembered for
how ruthless she was, but shewas also a boss in a business usually
run by men. She was abillionaire, and no one becomes a billionaire
without blood on their hands. AndI'm talking any billionaire, your Elon Musk
or a president. You're fucking peopleover if you're a billionaire. Everyone was

(17:06):
afraid of her and she was extremelypowerful. She also ruined so many people's
lives and their families, and thattrauma just goes on and on even to
this day. Griselda was also responsiblefor helping build up the famous Miami skyline.
Literally, without her, there wouldnot be a Miami that you have
now. Her only living son isa fashion brand called Pure Blanco and they

(17:30):
have men and women's clothes t shirtsthat say boss like Griselda Wow. He's
making money off his mother murdering people. Thank you for listening to the story
of drug kingpin Griselda Blanco. Leaveus a review, say hi to us
Twitter, Instagram, Thank you forlistening. Goodbye forever. We love you

(17:56):
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(18:19):
much. The last episode will beJune fourth, so make sure you come
back for that one. Thanks,Bye bye, guys, Love you bye,
love you bye. A big shoutout to our executive producers Heather B,
Mike t and Angie S. You'vereached the end of another murderific true

(18:41):
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(19:03):
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