Cocaine Queen: The Rise and Fall of Griselda Blanco

[EPISODE 48] Cocaine Queen: The Rise and Fall of Griselda Blanco

Adam Cox: and to join her gang, you had to undergo an initiation, you had to kill someone and cut off a body part as proof that they're dead.

Adam Cox: And

Kyle Risi: you've got to bring back, like, the finger or the toe, 

Adam Cox: or I don't feel like a finger's good enough. They could be anybody's. They need, like, something that probably identified them, a tattoo, a head, or whatever, I would have thought. 

Kyle Risi: What if they uh, brought back his penis, and like, Jim is like, Ah, you killed um You killed Steven. But how do you know? I recognize that 

Adam Cox: penis anywhere. 

Kyle Risi: I almost forgot to press record. Oh. I literally just realised that. Can you imagine? Oh, we're like 30 minutes in, like, God dammit, you didn't press record! 

Adam Cox: I'd have been very upset. I wouldn't, I would, 

Kyle Risi: I'd just be like, yeah, this week's cancelled. I wouldn't bother. 

Adam Cox: Just, okay, fine. Lois 

Kyle Risi: from Norwich would be very upset if that happened.

Kyle Risi: She'd be like, there's no episode on a Tuesday! How is We love you Lois, she's one of our long time listeners. She'd be very surprised to hear that actually. 

Adam Cox: Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

Adam Cox: If you're tuning in for the very first time, we are a weekly variety podcast, where each week, Kyle Recy normally tells me, Adam Cox, all about a topic that he thinks I will find all about a toffet. All about a topic that he thinks I will find both fascinating and intriguing. We cover stories from darker corners of true crime, historical events, and incredible people.

Adam Cox: We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. But today, it's my turn. I'm your host, Adam Cox. And I'm your co 

Kyle Risi: host this week, Kyle Reacy. 

Adam Cox: And in today's episode of The Compendium, we are exploring an assembly of chilling stories and the extreme lengths the world's most successful femme fatale went to to ensure she remained the Queen of Cocaine.

Kyle Risi: Are we talking cartel? 

Adam Cox: Cartel? We're talking about, uh, the biggest female criminal in the world. Are we 

Kyle Risi: talking the real life story of Wendy from Ozarks? Ha ha ha ha ha! This unassuming woman who was like, Oh, this little wallflower, Then all of a sudden she becomes like this kingpin of the cartel world!

Adam Cox: Yeah, Wendy. Wendy's a betch. She 

Kyle Risi: is. I love to use that word. Betch. Don't be a batch. Um, yeah, I have no idea what this is about. This is obviously a cartel story. Tell me 

Adam Cox: more. Well, today we are covering the life of Griselda Blanco. 

Kyle Risi: Is there like an, is this on Netflix at the minute? It's on 

Adam Cox: Netflix right now.

Adam Cox: Shut up. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. With what's her name? Uh, what's, oh, what's the actress's name for Modern Family? Sophia Vergara. Oh my gosh. She's so good. Oh my God. So this is the story of her life? Actual Sofia Vergara's life? Yeah, 

Adam Cox: Sofia Vergara is actually the Queen of Cocaine. She's the Queen of Cocaine? I knew it. Yeah, it's a biopic.

Adam Cox: Oh, it just makes so much sense. No, she is playing Griselda Blanco, and Griselda Blanco was one of the most powerful and violent drug lords between the 1970s and 1980s. She became the first female criminal billionaire. Really? She earned herself the title of the cocaine godmother. And black widow for being a violent and incredibly successful businesswoman.

Adam Cox: In a world dominated by men. I mean, 

Kyle Risi: to be fair, if you coin someone Black Widow, Um, to me that means you, you basically, you kill 

Adam Cox: your husband. Yep, that's, that's pretty much it. Oh, right. Okay. Um, but not just one husband. But anyway, we'll get on to that. Okay. She's even rubbed shoulders with Pablo Escobar. Mm hmm.

Adam Cox: She was one of the main reasons behind the prevalent crime in Miami in the 1980s. Managing to fly under the radar of the police for over 10 years But it's not just the police that have been after her her cutthroat behavior meant She gained a lot of attention from rival gangs, which would end up causing her to go into hiding combined with the manhunt Combined with the manhunt from the police to bring her down Combined with the manhunt from the police to bring down her billion dollar empire, Griselda Blanco accumulated quite the number of enemies during her time.

Adam Cox: Wow, and Stings involved. Mm, Stings. The police are here? The police are here? Where? Another friend's quote for those that are going, What the hell are they talking about? Um, so this is The Rise and Fall of Griselda Blanco, the Cocaine Godmother. Ah, I have just 

Kyle Risi: a feeling this is gonna be really good. I hope so.

Adam Cox: Ah, I'm so ready for this. Okay, but before we get into this it's time for all the 

Kyle Risi: latest things!

Kyle Risi: So this is a segment of our show where we catch up on all the things we've discovered from the last seven days. From weird bizarre news, quick facts, or stupid the stupid shenanigans amongst the 

Kyle Risi: The homo sapien species this week. It's Adam Stone's go first. What have you got for us? 

Adam Cox: So this week I've discovered that, you know, there was a time in your life when we couldn't go past an Apple store without you going in. Oh, you're talking about me specifically? You specifically. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, , I'm getting better, 

Adam Cox: but yeah, it's true. And when you go in, you want to basically touch them, pick them up, Lick 

Kyle Risi: them, spit on them, , all these things.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, 

Adam Cox: and this is why you've been barred. Um, no, but there's a science behind the way that they display their products. Oh, really? Um, which a lot of brands, I think, have now sort of copied what Apple first did, . When you go up to a lot of the laptops, the screen is angled at a certain way that you have to touch the screen in order for you to see the screen properly.

Adam Cox: Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, but I don't understand why. It's to encourage you to start touching the product. So same with the, uh, uh, the phones. They're at an angle whereby you need to pick them up in order to see them properly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they're lower down and everything. And so I guess the science behind that is so as soon as you start putting that into your hand, it then then gives you that feel, it then gives you that feeling of ownership and that you want it.

Adam Cox: And you start, obviously, they want you to touch the product, right? Yeah, yeah. And use it, experience it. So I thought that was quite interesting how they're manipulating us to part of our money. And also 

Kyle Risi: the big problem with that is these are glass items, right? So fingerprints are a huge problem when you're touching these items.

Kyle Risi: And because obviously their items are like these huge fingerprint magnets, they actually have this spray that they clean their laptops with, which just But what they have, really specifically, is a spray. 

Kyle Risi: So what they have really specif For fuck's sake, did you cover them? like stops these fingerprints from displaying, way better than the off the shelf products that we have. Yeah. So yeah, that's interesting. Is that it? Was that your latest news for this week?

 So I have one more thing, uh, it's about a woman who came back to life in a hearse on her way to her own crema cremation. 

Kyle Risi: That's 

Adam Cox: so scary. Yeah, so it was in India, so this woman was severely burnt in a fire in her home , uh, in February. Oh, this year? This year, yeah. And she went to hospital, and I think they tried to treat her, but then they sent her home.

Adam Cox: And I think the family, um, were too poor to then put her back into hospital. And so they believed that she had died and they arranged, they arranged for her to be taken to the cremation ground in a hearse. Uh, and it's during that journey that, um, apparently, uh, she opened her eyes, and suddenly they were like, Oh god, what's happened?

Adam Cox: It's like, she's back from the dead. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: can you imagine? can you imagine? Um, but And the thing is though, they've probably all started grieving already, so they've shed tears, they're really sad about it, then all of a sudden, grandma's back. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. And the weird thing is, the family didn't need a death certificate to perform the last rites, according to the crematorium.

Adam Cox: Well, I didn't think that that was a thing anyway. Oh, well, I thought you would need A death certificate or something to kind of show that, yeah, okay, you can put the body through. As in proof that the person is dead. 

Kyle Risi: Why does a piece of paper need to tell you that? It's like, uh, look, there's grandma, she's not moving, look, I'm gonna Like, I'm gonna lift her arm up, and then I'm gonna drop her hand down on her face, and then you announce that really loudly, because you do that to little kids, right?

Kyle Risi: And they don't want to hit themselves in the face? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I just thought, you know, they'd go through, I don't know, some kind of checks to make sure she was actually dead.

Adam Cox: I mean, Adam.

Kyle Risi: I don't know what to say to that. 

Adam Cox: I know, um, so No! 

Kyle Risi: Not 

Adam Cox: I know! to say. But the driver of the hearse basically called back to collect her and 

Kyle Risi: think you try to discard of this. Your dead needs to be dead 

Adam Cox: before you discard of it. Yeah, it's only like an hour later, like after driving her to the crematorium, they basically dropped her off back home.

Adam Cox: So I just think that's really funny. Can you imagine 

Kyle Risi: the shock? Like, oh, grandma's 

Adam Cox: back. ! We divvied up all our things. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, not giving that 

Adam Cox: back. So yeah, and this happens quite common it seems to be. Really? Well, more common than you think.

Adam Cox: There's another story of some woman I mean, I'd never think about that. 

Kyle Risi: Oh. But it is more than what you would think. 

Adam Cox: Yes, exactly. Because the news article I read said, as linking to other people where it's happened to, there was a woman back in a nursing home, which I think the nursing home thought she was dead.

Adam Cox: And so they left her. And then they went about their business and they came back to the room and she's like up and about walking around. So I was just like, what's happened to Sandy? 

Kyle Risi: that's crazy. The thing is that like, your breathing probably just gets shallow.

Kyle Risi: I don't know. , because with stethoscopes, right, you know what a stethoscope is, right? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, to measure your 

Kyle Risi: heartbeat. So apparently it's, it's quite common for doctors, if there's any doctors out there that can confirm this, apparently it's very common for doctors to, um, When they put the stethoscope up to the person's heart to hear the heartbeat, it's actually the wrong way around, they don't realise, and they're like, oh, it's not working.

Kyle Risi: And then they go, oh, it's because they've got it the wrong way around. Oh, really? So maybe that's what they've done, they're like, someone came up with a stethoscope, they put it on there, accidentally not knowing it was the wrong way around, and then they go, oh yeah, they're dead. And then they go about their business, come back, and then boom!

Kyle Risi: She's like, like breakdancing on the, in the middle of her apartment floor. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, bustin a hip. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they're my latest things for this week. 

Kyle Risi: So. I always admire people who take advantage of legal loopholes. There's just something about it that, to me, is another example of sticking up to the man, right?

Kyle Risi: And there's some really great examples across history of where people have done exactly that. 

Kyle Risi: So, for example, like in the UK, there is a UK loophole that allows alcohol to be sold without a license. On a train as long as it's in motion. All right, it has to be in motion. Yeah, so this unlicensed, uh gin distillery who couldn't get a license or couldn't afford to pay for the license. What they did is they created a train track or they purchased the rights to use an old disused train track from their distillery.

Kyle Risi: They put a train on it and they would then get people to just come on board and they would be able to sell all their alcohol. So, and that's how they circumvented this kind of law, because as long as the train was in motion, they could then sell their 

Adam Cox: alcohol without a license. That's crazy. So, but if, I guess if they've like, um, paused or, you know, dropping people off, I don't know if they would on this train track, but in theory Stop sales!

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's a big old sign that comes on. And as soon as it starts moving, right, quick, 

Kyle Risi: apology. Quick, quick, quick, yeah, get your drinks, we're stopping you in 10 minutes. So there's loads of other examples as well, like, , the really famous story in the 1990s, which I was thinking about doing a podcast on David Phillips exploiting a loophole in airlines, in an airline's offer to offer and in an airline's offer.

Kyle Risi: And he purchased over a million air miles for like 3, 000 just by buying pudding, because every time you bought some pudding, you would get some, some air miles. And he clocks up all these, these air miles, and then he held them to account. And like you have to give me my, air miles and the courts backed him up and everything like that.

Kyle Risi: So little legal loophole 

Adam Cox: there as well. It's a lot of pudding, but it seems to be 

Kyle Risi: worth it. It's a lot of pudding as well. This week I also want to bring you a really bizarre story.

Kyle Risi: That has been doing the rounds where a lawyer who insured his cigars against fire damage and then proceeded to smoke those cigars. And then file a claim. Whaaat? Yeah! So the story goes that a lawyer from Charlotte in North Carolina, obviously that's the USA, Um, decided that he was going to insure his really expensive Cuban cigars against fire, amongst obviously other risks as well, like mould and mildew and whatever.

Kyle Risi: So, later after smoking all the cigars, he decides that he's going to file a claim to the insurance company, stating that the cigars were lost in a series of small fires. 

Adam Cox: Yes, the fires of him lighting them up and 

Kyle Risi: smoking them. So initially the insurance company is like, Yeah, that's bullshit. We're denying your claim.

Kyle Risi: But the lawyer decides to go ahead and sue them. And surprisingly, he wins. So, because the judge essentially notes that the insurance company didn't define what constituted unacceptable fire in the policy details. And so they were obligated to pay the 15, 000 claim. 

Adam Cox: So this lawyer was just reading his home insurance policy or whatever and then was just looking through it and seeing all the items Going hmm.

Adam Cox: Do you reckon I could smoke those cigars and get away with it? Probably, I mean there's 

Kyle Risi: probably sport for these types of lawyers, right? They look through kind of terms and conditions and they look for loopholes and they go I can exploit this Let's do it and they probably just do it for fun. That's how they get their jollies.

Kyle Risi: But After the lawyer cashes the cheque, the insurance company have him arrested for 24 counts of arson. 

Adam Cox: So he started the 

Kyle Risi: fire. Yeah, and they also used his own insurance claim and his own testimony against him, which stated that he had obviously smoked them. So he confessed to that and the fires were deliberately set by him.

Kyle Risi: So he was convicted of intentionally burning. insured property, right? And also to circumvent the loopholes in that. And then he was sentenced to 24 months in jail and fined 24, 

Adam Cox: 000. Yeah, that seems like that really backfired. It did backfire, right? 

Kyle Risi: You didn't think about the You didn't look at the bigger picture, I guess.

Kyle Risi: I

Adam Cox: thought lawyers are supposed to be smart. 

Kyle Risi: Apparently so. But yeah, that's all my latest things for this week.

Kyle Risi: Should we get on to, uh, THE QUEEN OF COCAINE! 

Adam Cox: Yes. I don't know what that was. 

Kyle Risi: What's a Colombian accent? 

Adam Cox: It's not that. 

Kyle Risi: Well, how would Sofia 

Adam Cox: Vergara say it?

Adam Cox: Well, it's how she speaks. She's got that Latina, Spanish 

Kyle Risi: She speaks like, really whiny and loud. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's her character in Modern Family, I think. Yeah, but to 

Kyle Risi: me, she's like that all the time. 

Adam Cox: So, Griselda's story begins in Colombia, in Cartagena. She was born, she was just three years old, and she moved there with her mother Anna repo to Meine. Some say that living there exposed her to this life of crime at a really young age, which would set her on her dark path. Mm-Hmm. because in Carter Henna.

Adam Cox: In Colombia, it wasn't the greatest place to bring up children. Um, during the 1940s and 50s, Griselda grew up in a rough area called barrio Antioquia, known for its gangs, prostitutes, and hired killers. Blanco lived in a neighborhood. Blanco lived in a, Blanco lived in a neighbourhood designated as a red light district where illegal activities were kind of tolerated. Violence would be a daily occurrence. There'd be dead bodies littered on the streets.

Adam Cox: What? And so there'd be young children seeing this and they would be desensitised to death. Hang on, so you're just 

Kyle Risi: like off to school, off to Sunday school and then boom, there's someone like been shot in the head just 

Adam Cox: laying on the ground. Yeah, I think it would be common. Perhaps. Yeah, there's chances are you would have come across it at a young age.

Adam Cox: Sure. God. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Awful. But then I guess if you're being desensitized to it, because that's when it's a problem, right? If you're not desensitized to it, then it's a problem. But if you're desensitized to it, then there's no big deal. 

Adam Cox: Well, yes, but then It's shocking 

Kyle Risi: to us because 

Adam Cox: we're not desensitized to it.

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. But if at a young age, she's already seeing death And violence, then it's not going to face her when she gets older. Mm hmm. So, she starts out as a pickpocketer, uh, at a very young age. And legend has it, she steps up a few notches quite quickly.

Adam Cox: Because at the age of 11, she kidnaps a boy who is 10, from an upscale neighborhood. Brilliant. She holds him for ransom. But his parents don't take that threat seriously, and without a second Well, because it's like 

Kyle Risi: an 11 year old girl going, Yeah, like, I'm holding your son for ransom. Well, yeah, I don't Would you take an 11 year old girl seriously?

Adam Cox: I don't know if they revealed it was a girl, But like a, I don't know, a note went through their door. I don't know, I don't know the details. Okay, okay. Um Well, I mean, 

Kyle Risi: you probably looked at the Have you seen, like, the writing of an 11 It's clearly done by an 11 year old girl. Yeah. It's got like little hearts over the eyes.

Adam Cox: True. Or she might have like cut out like letters from a newspaper. I don't know. That's a lot of effort. But apparently, she takes his life and becomes a cold blooded killer at the age of 11. She killed him! Yeah. This is before she gets to her teens. 

Kyle Risi: Goddamn. Why? Because she's like, oh, they're not interested, so she's like, oh I'm bored of this now.

Kyle Risi: Kill them. 

Adam Cox: I don't know the exact details, and it's really hard to find anything that corroborates this story, but So you lied. Well, no, I didn't lie. But this is the thing that's been passed down over time about Griselda Blanco, and you'll find that this happens quite a lot in her early years.

Adam Cox: There's almost this mythical Legendary status. Yeah. And so we dunno what's exactly true and what's a fabrication. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Because I guess because she's this formidable woman, right. Who was head of this , huge cartel and she's a woman. . She needs a legend. She needs an origin story.

Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And that all just feeds into it. But, uh, God, that's a really, a painting had to be like not a very nice person. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, um, because Hang on, 

Kyle Risi: just so, just so I know as well. Throughout the story, are we, like, celebrating and championing her, or are we like, this is, oof, oof, Griselda?

Kyle Risi: Well Oof, 

Adam Cox: questionable choice. You know, she's a, we'll go into the, some of the detail, but you know, she's a mother, she's doing this for her kids. Uh, but she is a horrible woman. That makes it okay then, yeah. Doing it for the kids! You can respect her, but, I don't think we should be rooting for her .  Um, so, so, um, The thing is, I think when you're forced into prostitution between the ages of 8 and 12, 

Adam Cox: And you've got an alcoholic mother, your moral compass is going to be pretty messed up at an early age. There's no wholesomeness in her life and I think regardless of whether these stories are mythical or kind of made up or a fabrication, I think the point that is quite clear is she didn't have that loving 

Adam Cox: Upbringing that most children should have. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Cause I mean, , having a non alcoholic mother is the foundation to teaching you not to kidnap the boy from down the road and then murdering him in cold blood. But yeah, great. It's perfect. I understand. I get it. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. And also where she grew up, I think that's the point as well.

Adam Cox: But anyway, so her mother's boyfriend would, uh, Abuse her and it got so bad at the age of 19 that she decides that enough is enough. She wants a better life for herself. So she escapes, uh, into the hills of Medellín. From then on she lives hand to mouth turning to a prostitution to survive. Albeit that's something she would deny later on in interviews.

Adam Cox: She said that she never did that when she was, you know, when she left home herself. Sure, because 

I 

Kyle Risi: get it because like people they Don't go into prostitution lightly, right? It's a, it's a last resort. So, of course, if she's in a position to be able to deny that, I think a lot of 

Adam Cox: people would. Yeah, but I think it's also because she didn't really have this trust with men.

Adam Cox: And so she doesn't want to be at the hands of a man or anything or rely on them. So I think, yeah, I 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Is considered almost as submissive, kind of. Part in the transaction if you will. Yeah, but you can be a strong formidable women that is in prostitution, but ultimately Unless you're in a dominatrix situation.

Kyle Risi: It's kind of like you're a 

Adam Cox: submissive person. Yeah, I guess and it possibly in that neighborhood It was quite a violent and dangerous career Yeah, anyway, as a teenager Griselda found herself in a relationship with a much older man named Carlos a so over the years he taught her the art of forging passports, turning her into an expert in creating fake identities.

Adam Cox: Nice. And together they organised the illegal smuggling of thousands of people into US. And quite quickly Griselda and Carlos were married with their three sons, uh, Dixon, Uber and Osvaldo. What a name! Osvelda. Osvelda, that's a really nice name. Is it a boy or a girl? They're all, uh, boys. Oh, okay.

Adam Cox: And the family split their time between Columbia and New York in the early 70s. And they're using their fake passport details themselves in order to travel to and from.

Adam Cox: So they're jet setting, man. Yeah, um, they also start to sell, uh, drugs, but this is pretty small time for them. It's just things like marijuana. Um, but then her husband suddenly dies, and the circumstances surrounding his death are not entirely clear. Okay. 

Kyle Risi: mean, you did make it out as if they were quite happy.

Kyle Risi: Well I know you didn't explicitly say that. 

Adam Cox: They were happy initially, some say that he, , suddenly died from liver failure. Uh huh. But then others say that Griselda Blanco had Carlos killed due to a business dispute. 

Kyle Risi: I like this letterheading! No, this one's better! This one's more Professional.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, but look at the font on this one. Yeah. Don't mess with me, Carlos. I am a formidable Colombian woman. 

Adam Cox: It sounds more Russian. I kill you. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean, I'm really bad at accents. So it's , my Indian accent sounds very suspiciously Welsh and vice versa.

Kyle Risi: So like I'm terrible at accents, but however, however, The record shows that my my transaustralian accent from the emu episode, you loved it, you said it was really good. Actually my sister listened to that and she said it was great. In fact, when we were doing the Gypsy Rose episode, My sister said she loved my accent then when I was like putting on the Disney princess accent.

Kyle Risi: So yeah. 

Adam Cox: Family though, huh? 

Adam Cox: And, oh, actually, also, , track record shows every time I do an accent, we always get a comment because when we did the, uh, Marie Antoinette, podcast episode, we had someone write in telling us how funny my accent, my French accent was. So actually, that's quite a lot of comments that we've got from 

Adam Cox: people.

Adam Cox: They said how funny it was, not how good it it was, how funny it was. Yeah, but that's all that matters, 

Kyle Risi: right? If it's funny, it's 

Adam Cox: It's good. Sure. Alright. Um, so anyway. Back to Griselda's first husband. So he's dead, and despite some suspicion, she was never really charged of the crime that it was her, but it was rumoured that Carlos was assassinated by a hitman after divorcing Griselda, and many believed his death was connected to a drug deal that turned bad.

Adam Cox: But we don't really know. Another one of these things that just adds to the myth of Griselda.

Adam Cox: But I think it's safe to say she did have a poor background. Um,

Adam Cox: With her first husband out of the way, it didn't take long for Griselda Blanco to find her second husband, another gangster named Alberto Bravo. Unlike Blanco's first husband, Bravo wasn't involved in people smuggling. Instead, he focused on smuggling cocaine, recognizing the substantial profits to be made, especially in the US.

Adam Cox: Because this was, I think, at the time when cocaine really started to take off, with a lot of, you know, traders and stock market people in the 70s and 80s. Initially, Bravo's drug operation was small scale, but Blanco had much grander ambitions than being a small time drug lord. She envisioned transforming the drug trade and establishing a powerful empire in America, and it just so happened it was the right time to do that.

Adam Cox: So together What does that mean? Well, like I said, with the take off of the drug Okay, sorry, sorry, 

Kyle Risi: sorry, of course. I thought you were alluding to something else, like the weather's just right. Do you know that there's just enough people addicted to cocaine and drugs? Yeah, and do you know the demand for people smuggling?

Kyle Risi: Way down. So gonna skip to cocaine. My name is Griselda. I'm a formidable. 

Adam Cox: Okay, this is gonna be a long episode, isn't it? So together, they move their operation from Columbia to New York, Drawing upon Blanco's existing human trafficking network in the United States to distribute their cocaine.

Adam Cox: Mm hmm. However, before they could expand the operation, they needed a steady supply of cocaine that they could import from Bolivia and Peru to the U. S. and at a large scale. I mean, 

Kyle Risi: to be fair, I, I, I, honestly I just assumed they had that ready to eat up. 

Adam Cox: Not yet. 

. cocaine.

Kyle Risi: Brilliant, where do we start? Um, well we've got the stockpile of cocaine. Is normally how this will start. 

Adam Cox: But how do they get that much cocaine into the US easily? This is the problem. So, as a woman operating in a male dominated industry. Blanco's cunning plan was to create a new innovative method of smuggling cocaine, hiding it in plain sight and where authorities wouldn't think to look. So could, so do you have any ideas of where they might have done that? So 

Kyle Risi: drawing on previous experience from previous episodes, I think they pumped an otter's belly filled with cocaine.

Kyle Risi: strapped those otters into a series of pantyhose and made some Indonesian guy wear those pantyhose with the otters strapped inside them and then put him on a plane to America. Um, 

Adam Cox: couldn't be more wrong, but nice try.

Adam Cox: So I think we've all heard of stories how people managed to smuggle drugs into a country. Uh, and so people try and hide them in secret compartments of their luggage, um, but that's usually pretty easy to be detected these days in particular. Sometimes people smuggle them within their body. Uh, I did hear one person was caught at an airport, whereby the guy appeared to have a broken arm, but somehow they managed to make a cast out of cocaine, uh, which is pretty genius if you don't get caught.

Kyle Risi: . I've seen some pretty ingenious ways that people have smuggled.

Kyle Risi: The most recent one that I saw was these guys, they were making these boats. Like these plastic boats. And do you know how like two paper plates for a barbecue fit together seamlessly and sometimes like you think that it's just one plate but there's actually two plates and they're really kind of like well molded to each other.

Kyle Risi: So what they get, two boats, plastic boats just like that, they fit together like that but there's a thin layer of cocaine. In between them, and then they seed it, and then they send those boats off to whatever, to the U. S. Or whatever, like ship them, not like sail them. Yeah. But when they get there, then they just split these two boats apart, and then there's all that cocaine in 

Adam Cox: there.

Adam Cox: Well, that's pretty cool. It is clever. Yeah. So it's a little bit like that, but not at all actually. Um, but Blanco's method wasn't quite as brazen as, I guess, having it on a cast or anything like that. But what she would do, 

Adam Cox: so Blanco's method wasn't quite as brazen as sort of having it on a cast because custom guards are used to looking at people with unusual bulges or extra layers of clothing to kind of detect drug mules. 

Kyle Risi: Pure or horny kind of a custom specialist, you'd be like, he's got a big bulge, let's shake him out.

Adam Cox: Nope, no drugs here. Next! To make smuggling easier, Griselda Blanco bought a women's underwear factory and they designed special garments and lingerie like padded bras and girdles that could hide drugs more effectively while shaping the female figure and making it appear natural.

Kyle Risi: Do you think that she, thanks to her, that's how the Wonder Bra was pioneered? Because she learnt where the right amount of, like, padding was needed 

Adam Cox: to flatter the female body. I don't know enough history about bras, if I'm honest. Um, but I think the brilliance of her plan was that they had to hide the drugs where border guards would least expect them and so they carefully selected Colombian women that they could trust as their couriers and Teach them to use a charm and sexuality to distract customs and immigration officers So these women were often very curvaceous and attractive and were encouraged to flirt with these men in order to get past Sure, and each bra contained a kilo of a cocaine worth ten thousand dollars in profit Wow So quite a lot.

Adam Cox: While the use of women in drug smuggling wasn't new, what set Griselda Blanco apart was her active recruitment of them into operation, and she was very selective.

Adam Cox: She would only bring in those that she really trusted into her inner circle. And it worked, because these women helped to smuggle so much into the U. S., undetecting. These women helped her to smuggle so much cocaine into the U. S., undetected, it allowed her to forge her billion dollar empire. And I think this is great because , remember when we dressed as female fitness instructors?

Adam Cox: Mm hmm, of course, they'll never leave me. We had these massive wigs, we're wearing leotards, we had breasts, yeah. Fill the cocaine, famously. Well no, but we did fill our padded bras with juice boxes of alcohol. Oh my god, yes we did. Remember the Capri Suns? And so this is, It's exactly the same.

Adam Cox: It's 

Kyle Risi: exactly the same. I use my sheer female sexuality to, um, distract the, uh, the, the festival kind of Guards. Yeah. While you slip by. And, uh, yeah, okay, I'm getting it. I get, I get it. I get it. I get it. We

Adam Cox: have smuggled drugs before. We've done 

Kyle Risi: this. Yeah. We could have been one of Griselda's, uh, trusted Colombian, um, female

Adam Cox: I've also done this with armbands at a beach fancy dress party, but getting the alcohol in the the armbands, was a lot more difficult. You had to like, spit it in, so I was just drinking backwash. You don't want to be sharing that then. No, although some people were fine with it. I remember I was like pouring shots out of my armband.

Adam Cox: Gross. I did, I did warn them. My backwash! Yeah, they were like, it's fine, it's free. 

Kyle Risi: Would you take free alcohol if it was backwash alcohol now? Like, a waiter came up to the table like, so The wine on offer today is, we have like this really beautiful, green, organic, really citrus Sauvignon Blanc.

Kyle Risi: It's 15 per glass, but we do have the same one that's free, it's just been spat back into the bottle by Hosier, who is our dishwasher. 

Adam Cox: I would go Can I just, just check out Hosier? Yeah. Does he have clean hands? Is he clean? Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: And if he's really hot, I'll be like, yeah. Sure. I'll have two. A bit of mouth spitting's fine.

Kyle Risi: Spit that wine into my mouth. Can we get Hosier to drink the wine again and spit back into my 

Adam Cox: mouth? Um, yeah. Anyway, so that's, yeah, I don't think I would do it now. It's kind of gross. Like I 

Kyle Risi: said, it depends on what Hosea looks like.

Adam Cox: Anyway. Yeah. So before long, Griselda and Alberto had seized control of New York's cocaine trade from the five Italian mafia families. They were bringing in a pretty tasty ten million dollars in weekly profits from doing this. Wow.

Adam Cox: Which is an incredible amount of money. Mmm. However, their success didn't escape the notice of law enforcement, including the police department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. More and more mugshots were taken of dealers getting caught, lineups were being organized, and there was just an increasing amount of cocaine that was confiscated from the streets and they were stored in police facilities, which were probably saved for the Christmas party, but anyway.

Adam Cox: So despite these arrests, the police department in New York had no clue as to where these drugs were coming from. And so they launched, uh, this underground or secret mission called Operation Banshee. And this operation involved sending undercover policemen out into the streets to try and infiltrate and gain intelligence on where the influx of cocaine was coming from and who was behind it.

Kyle Risi: Right, so they're not interested in the small time players, they want to get like who is at the heart of this organization so we can bring 

Adam Cox: them down. Yes, exactly that. And so these officers needed to get in with an informant, and the best way to do that was to And so these officers needed to get in with an informant and the best way to get to them is to bust them for a crime or approach them if they've done multiple crimes and were facing some serious prison time.

Adam Cox: Right. So in exchange Time to negotiate. Yeah, , if you could get them on your side by saying, hey, we'll give you a more lenient sentence or possibly no jail time at all. Or this bag of cocaine. We'll give you one bag back. Yeah. Um, then the informants, uh, would, potentially do that with the police.

Adam Cox: So the police arranged to get a name of a supplier called Lila Prada. She worked within the organisation as a distributor, but wasn't a key member. However, she probably could prove quite valuable. So getting closer to her would get them closer to the source. Uh, because at the point, this point, because at this point in time, the police have not heard of Griselda Blanco whatsoever.

Adam Cox: So she's just not on the radar. Not on the radar. So the police get a warrant to wire Lida Parada's apartment and they need to have a very good understanding of Spanish and know the colloquialisms and slang from specific areas within, Latin America, Colombia or whatever, to decipher some of the things that they'd be talking about.

Adam Cox: For example, if the police hear a dealer saying, Oh, um, I'm dropping off the kids, Uh, That means he's having a shit. No, that's what I thought that. I was like, Oh, he's coming for a poo. No, it actually means, um, Oh, no, he's, you know, dropping off some drugs to someone. Okay. So, uh, Uh, or, um, someone might be dropping off some clothes at the cleaners. That would be another way of saying it. Um, but sometimes they would say things like, Oh, the bread wasn't good. So what do you think that might mean? The bread wasn't good. 

Kyle Risi: Um, it means, I don't know. 

Adam Cox: It means, well, they think, you know, they could have been, It means that maybe the batch that they cooked wasn't good enough.

Adam Cox: Oh, I see. So, therefore, there's going to be a delay because we need to redo 

Kyle Risi: it or something. Right, right. Didn't meet grandma's, uh, quality control. Yeah, 

Adam Cox: exactly. . So, they needed to crack these codes.

Adam Cox: Plus, all the names that suspects tended to use were fake. And they had to, and so they used these aliases. And so we, when they were, And so even when they're in custody, they would give out different names and different ID to try and, you know, evade being caught so it was really hard to track down these people, um, with any legitimate information.

Adam Cox: The only way that they could be confident is if you had a fingerprint taken or a photograph. And of course, Griselda had never been arrested before, so they have no name, no pictures, no fingerprints. And the street of New York continues to be flooded with cocaine. But then during their investigation, from tapping people's apartments and things like that They come across these two sisters called Carmen and Gloria Caban and these two sisters are already serving time for cocaine trafficking.

Adam Cox: So they're pretty experienced within this field, uh, which means they're probably well connected to the big players in New York. The police visit the sisters and even from a secure prison cell, the sisters refuse to talk initially. And it's clear to the police that these girls are afraid to reveal too much information and it takes several attempts and the offer of witness protection and earlier release so they can see their family back in Colombia.

Adam Cox: That they actually begin to talk and it's then when they reveal 30 names of people dealing drugs in New York And one of the behind it was Griselda Blanco Oh, someone's mentioned her name! So this is the first time they hear about that And who, who said the name? One of the sisters One of the sisters But when they start to probe In fact, the sisters, or one of the sisters, was so scared that she would even tremble at the sound of this woman's name.

Adam Cox: Really? Oh, god. They are petrified of her. Really? 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. The thing is though, like, that must either be based on their own personal experience or stories that they've heard 

Adam Cox: I think this is revealed from , , the police investigator, so we'll come on to him a little bit later because I think he was on the case for years.

Adam Cox: But the police have no photograph of her, no criminal records, like I said, so she's just a name, she's a ghost essentially.

Adam Cox: And so, it makes it really hard for them because the other thing that Griselda would do, she would change her appearance a lot. So she would lose weight, gain weight, she would be glamorous, she would , look more run down. 

Kyle Risi: And that's smart though, because a lot of people they'll try and change their behaviour, but they won't change their style.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And she's literally gaining weight, or she's making herself look more shabby, or then reversing that and making herself look really glamorous. I think that's quite smart, actually. Yeah.. 

Adam Cox: Exactly, and I think because her background in identity fraud , she would obviously create a new identity where she, , appeared slightly different on all of them, .

Adam Cox: So at this point in time, she's evaded arrest for a while and the police are only just starting to get close to her. Uh, in order for Griselda to become so powerful, so rich, and to strike fear in a lot of people, like the Caban sisters, what did she do to cause this reputation?

Adam Cox: Is that a question for me, or are you about to tell me? Well, yeah, I'm about to tell you. . Um, so as I said, Griselda had to operate in a world dominated by men. And to succeed, she had to be tougher and more ruthless than any man, so people would respect her and think twice about double crossing her.

Adam Cox: I'm 

Kyle Risi: assuming this is going down the route of killing a few men just as a warning to all the 

Adam Cox: rest. She really killed her husband. Well, allegedly. So she had to show that she couldn't be messed with, and she would be willing to kill you if you owed her money. Uh huh. Or if she owed you money and she didn't want to pay, she'd kill you.

Adam Cox: Yeah. If, uh, you looked at her funny, she'd kill you. Yeah. If you encroached you. Should kill you. Uh huh. Um, so the whole point is, yeah, , it didn't take a lot for her to pull the trigger at you. And the thing is, she sort of mesmerized people. People say she could woo you in her presence. 

Adam Cox: she was a glamorous lady, um

Adam Cox: uh, but not just that, her success, uh, would make you a loyal follower because she was pretty renowned within that sort of field. 

Kyle Risi: Right, so she was well respected, and she's admirable, great business person, so people feared her and liked her, and We admired her and all these things. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and if she asked you to do something, she wouldn't ask you to do something that she wouldn't do herself.

Adam Cox: But she didn't look like, uh, a killer. She was only, like, about five feet tall. A bit like your mum, actually. So, can you imagine her being a killer? I mean, 

Kyle Risi: it's difficult to judge us Glaswegians. Even when they're being polite, they sound really 

Adam Cox: aggressive, so.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I imagine her like pulling out a Swiss Army knife at a post office worker or something. 

Kyle Risi: My mum used to be the bully of bullies. Really? Yeah, she was like a bully at school, but she would bully the other people that were bullying other 

Adam Cox: kids. Oh, that's good. Yeah. That's good. Doing it for the, I don't know, the underdog.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess so. That's what she always used to tell me. And now she just spends her time buying vibrators for friends. 

Kyle Risi: it. Actually, I had my sister the other day ask me, uh, she sent me a question. I don't know what is happening with her. All my family, they're all freaking mental when it comes to like talking to me about sex.

Kyle Risi: I don't want to hear it. But apparently, I'd had a conversation with my sister where I was telling her about a friend of mine who had gone ahead and set up a sex shop in Norwich somewhere. Which I don't remember. I think it was me just telling my sister about a friend's friend who'd set up an online sex shop.

Kyle Risi: But my sister was like, where is it? Can I go and visit it? I'm like, No! 

Adam Cox: Did you get a discount? Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: like I don't want to be having this conversation with you. There's no sex shop! So, just get out of my life! 

Adam Cox: Maybe she thought you had a loyalty card. Do my

Kyle Risi: family think I'm somebody else? 

Adam Cox: Have you been staking me 

Kyle Risi: for the for the Yeah, why do they keep talking to me like this?

Kyle Risi: I don't want to talk about vibrators and sex with you 

Adam Cox: guys. Yeah, that is weird. Anyway, so one of Griselda's main methods of killing become a staple in the career of being a hitman. She is credited with inventing the motorbike drive by shooting, a tactic whereby an assassin would ride up to you, gun you down, and ride off again.

Adam Cox: She invented that? She invented that, yeah. That's, that's her doing. I don't know if she was riding on the motorbike, but I think she came up with the idea, or she used that a lot. So was she, 

Kyle Risi: like? Dunno, guys. I know how we can improve on the drive by shooting. Motorbikes! 

Adam Cox: It's 20 percent quicker at getting away.

Kyle Risi: And if you need to turn around, you can just go! 

Kyle Risi: I guess the idea is that if you're like in the mean streets of Columbia Then you can kind of whiz down their little side routes and stuff like that.

Kyle Risi: Whereas a car you can't always get 

Adam Cox: into tight spaces I think that was probably part of it. Yeah, it sounds like it makes sense.

Adam Cox: So she would use this tactic again and again and Racking up what is thought to be over 200 murders, some say up to 2, 000. That's mental! Yeah, I mean, I only saw that quoted once, so it just makes me think because there's a lot of crime going on in Colombia or wherever, so maybe she's somehow connected, but a lot of people do suggest this sort of 200 mark in terms of how many people she had killed.

Adam Cox: Her personally, well through a hit man, but she has killed people, I believe 

Kyle Risi: yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, we're not talking anywhere more than like Harold Shipman who killed like 383 

Adam Cox: people. I guess not, I mean, this is kind of what's quoted no one really knows because there's so much that's just, uh, legend or not like proven in any, in, in this case.

Adam Cox: But, um, yeah. Wow. It's still a lot. And so she had run ins with rival gangs, and so by the time she was forced to go back into hiding in Colombia because the heat had turned up on her in New York, Griselda had made quite a few enemies, plus there are now other drug rings that are stronger and bigger in Colombia when she goes back.

Adam Cox: One of them being the infamous Pablo Escobar. So he's known as the godfather of cocaine, and he had taken over as the biggest drug network in Colombia since Griselda had moved to America. and Pablo was one of the richest drug lords in history, controlling about 80 percent of the global cocaine market and reportedly earning more than 420 million dollars a week.

Kyle Risi: That's crazy. That's so crazy. And I love the fact that he, um, Preceded. Preceded? He succeeded. He her. So she was the 

Adam Cox: original OG. Yeah, in that particular area. But that's crazy, like I had no idea there was an overlap. Yeah, I mean, crime clearly plays. But what it meant was that, um, Griselda couldn't really take back control from Pablo Escobar. In fact, she was fearful of Escobar given her reputation, that's, that's kind of a big deal. Given his reputation? Well, her reputation, she was fearful of him because she was pretty violent herself. Yeah. But then Escobar has been rumoured to say that the only man that he was ever afraid of Was a woman named Griselda Bartholomew.

Adam Cox: God, that's so rude. I think he's just sort of saying like, You are my rival. I think that's it. Yeah, yeah. Rather than you look like a man. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: exactly. It's probably also like, yeah, exactly as you said. It's like a mark of respect. Yes. Because he's saying you're my equal. But then at the same time embrace the fact that she's a female, right?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Like she's just another human being. It doesn't matter if she's male or female. But I see, I see the sentiment 

Adam Cox: there. Yeah. Not much is known about how well they knew each other, um, they did meet in the late 1970s when he was only 15 and she was 20 and he was looking to get into the drug game and Griselda had more experience than him at that time and so he was kind of trying to draw upon her experience and network to get in.

Kyle Risi: Do you know what, I guarantee you 100 percent that in this, in the doc, sorry, in the TV series of this, when there are scenes with them together, 100 percent guaranteed there's going to be sexual tension between them two. Because that's the first thing I thought of, is like, I bet they banged. Well, 

Adam Cox: there's a thing.

Adam Cox: They say that there potentially was a romantic relationship. They banged! we don't really know. I mean, not probably at that age, 15 and 20. If she was 20 and he was 15, it's probably not. Because she had her husband, although she did just kill him. So I don't know. I don't know. They banged. There's no confirmation of that.

Adam Cox: What sort of set them apart though was that Escobar sought for power and glory but in the beginning Griselda was doing this all for her children. She was a single mother, she came out of an incredibly abusive relationship with her mother and other people around her that she wanted to make a life for the kids that she had.

Adam Cox: Obviously not necessarily the best life, but she was turning a profit and a pretty tasty one. I mean, 

Kyle Risi: it's pretty much the best life, if you ask me. 

Adam Cox: During Blanco's time back in Colombia, Things with her second husband is is starting to strain. For six years they were a very strong team, but now there are rumors that they've, that, but now there are rumors he's been skimming profits.

Adam Cox: He's potentially, he's potentially having another affair. Um, so they've kind of fallen out of love and, but they still have, they've fallen out of love, but they still have a common business interest together. Um, but Griselda needs to settle things, um, and quite quickly. So she travels to meet Alberto, uh, with an entourage of bodyguards, and they arrive outside a nightclub and park up.

Adam Cox: Griselda and her men get out of the cars, and as Alberto steps out of the club, accompanied by his team of armed men, Griselda and her husband stand at opposite ends of this car parking lot, and their guards are standing behind them and there's fingers resting on triggers ready to draw. Whatever their initial intentions were to resolve matters, things escalate pretty quickly because we assume there was some kind of heated argument or dispute because it leads to Alberto and Griselda drawing guns on each other.

Adam Cox: Bullets are flying in all different directions. It's,. It's a bloody shootout . And Griselda and her men managed to fatally wound Albert. Managed to fat man Griselda and her men managed to fatally wound Alberto, leaving him for dead in that car parking lot. And Griselda herself is wounded in the stomach but her injuries are not life threatening.

Adam Cox: She survives. Goddammit, can 

Kyle Risi: you imagine, like It's just a domestic, uh, it's just a domestic dispute. You're getting, you've got this entourage with you that are on your side. Yeah. Like, we could do that when we have a fight. 

Kyle Risi: Like, 

Adam Cox: The thing is, they were probably like this one big unit, and it's somehow divided. It's like a civil war. Yeah. Between them, sort of thing. It's crazy. This is so good. Uh, and so it's Alberto's death is where she gets the nickname the Black Widow because obviously spiders, um, female spiders supposedly kill the male spiders after mating.

Adam Cox: I think it's just

Kyle Risi: the Black Widow, isn't it? Or does it? Oh 

Adam Cox: yeah, the Black Widow. Sorry, that's what I meant. , so a year later, she does move on quite quickly and she marries another drug trafficker. Dario Zepevelde. Okay, good name. I think I've said that right. And soon after, Griselda has another baby, a boy, and she cherishes all her children, but this one in particular, I guess because he's the youngest, always happens, I guess.

Adam Cox: She, I guess 

Kyle Risi: Always the youngest is the favourite. Can do no 

Adam Cox: wrong. Yeah, she names him Michael Colioni, after Al Pacino's character in the Godfather movies. Um, so yeah, quite, I think it was quite funny because she, she knows that she's called the cocaine godmother.

Adam Cox: Yeah. . It's really weird that you 

Kyle Risi: would expect like, the characters in The Godfather would be basing their characters on real life. But no, here she is like, the most successful drug pin or queen pin in the world is using inspiration from The 

Adam Cox: Godfather. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?

Adam Cox: I can't say it like that. You 

Kyle Risi: said it as if that was on the script. It's funny, isn't 

Adam Cox: it?  it? I was looking for my next prompt. But, even though you might be the father of Griselda's favourite child, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be saved at the mercy. of Griselda Blanco. Oh God. He ends up being gunned down in Colombia after a custody dispute over Michael . Wow, his story ended quick. Yeah, it didn't take long.

Adam Cox: And it's speculated that Griselda was behind that hit. And the woman goes through more husbands than Katie Price.

Adam Cox: Which she does. Three husbands. Okay. That's 

Kyle Risi: quite a lot. Okay. How many husbands does she 

Adam Cox: have? Like, five? Oh, well, that's actually it. But she has some other romantic liaisons as the story goes on. Adam, I 

Kyle Risi: don't think we should be judging women for marrying a bunch of times. 

Adam Cox: But killing two husbands? 

Kyle Risi: I don't think we should be judging women for killing their husbands.

Adam Cox: They probably deserved it. They probably did. So it's at this point in time that Griselda So it's at this point in time that Griselda's business is suffering at the hands of Pablo Escobar. Over time, Escobar has taken over manufacturing and distribution chains from Griselda, and he's sending out his own team of assassins to basically take down her team.

Adam Cox: He takes over the main airport, Matina Airport, whereby she would use to kind of traffic all of her women across to the U. S. So she hasn't got much more room to kind of grow her empire at this point. And she knows that she can't go up against him because he is just too powerful. So Griselda needs a new plan to stay on the run from the DEA in New York and get away from Escobar.

Adam Cox: So she disappears , and it's not clear where she's moved to this time, but she uses her fake ID to move around again. Any leads for the police have gone cold for quite some time, and to be honest, they actually think that she's been killed because they have no inkling as to what she's up to. But then a series of violent crimes in Miami draws their attention to look closer in that area.

Adam Cox: And all of a sudden, there's an increase in shootings, dead bodies, and cocaine on the streets of Miami. And to join her gang, you had to undergo an initiation, um, in her group of henchmen, which I think are called the Pistoleros. You had to kill someone and cut off a body part as proof that they're dead.

Adam Cox: And

Kyle Risi: you've got to bring back, like, the finger or the toe, 

Adam Cox: or I don't feel like a finger's good enough. They could be anybody's. They need, like, something that probably identified them, a tattoo, a head, or whatever, I would have thought. 

Kyle Risi: that's harsh. I mean, a finger's easy, 

Adam Cox: right? Exactly, you could just get that off someone you know, and be like, can I borrow this for the day?

Kyle Risi: they, What if they uh, brought back his penis, and like, Jim from, like, the gang headquarters is like, Ah, you killed um You killed Steven. But how do you know? I recognize that 

Adam Cox: penis anywhere. Yeah, well maybe. You never know. So her brutal actions spread across town and she became famous once again, orchestrating a shootout at this large shopping mall.

Adam Cox: And during this violent incident in Miami, she left behind what was known as a war wagon. Which was essentially an armored vehicle equipped with a vast amount of weapons and gun portholes to attack. So she had kind of got this, I don't know this, this defense vehicle, it was 

Adam Cox: like custom made. Yeah. So she left that behind and now the police have their weapons. . 

Adam Cox: Or some of their weapons. And I think they kind of know what's going on. They start to kind of piece bits together that maybe she's about in town again. Mm-Hmm. . Uh, so she becomes.

Adam Cox: At the top of the most wanted list in the US pretty quickly. Wow. Fun fact, at this point in time, in the 1980s, Columbia was producing three quarters of all cocaine on the planet and about 70% of that was trafficked through South Florida. , and that's more than 20 billion uh, dollars of product moving into Miami.

Adam Cox: Wow. So that was a lot and it changed quite quickly. I think this is what they call the Miami drug Wars, I think of the eighties or something.

Adam Cox: Some of the money from her cocaine enterprise is invested in legitimate businesses and infrastructure. So obviously you have to launder that money. Uh, and it was a time when the economy, um, was on a downward trend in a lot of places, but Miami was thriving because of the cocaine industry and it was driving that, uh, economy.

Adam Cox: And it didn't really, it wasn't affected by recession during this time. However, the prosperity comes with a dark side because the Miami police department is overwhelmed by violent crime. The morgues are overcrowded . And that forces authorities to store dead bodies in refrigerated vans and on ice.

Adam Cox: And apparently they used to bur And apparently they used to borrow them from Burger King. 

Kyle Risi: Shit, really? So like, damn. the van's gotta shift down the morgue. And as soon as that's done, just spray it out and then off to deliver some burgers. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, they unload the van of the beef patties and stick in a couple of bodies.

Adam Cox: What if 

Kyle Risi: they're like, oh yeah, your shift's over for that van, we need the van back, they forget to empty the bodies out and they, like, take burgers off to the processing plant, or the humans, and they go, oh, these look like weird cows. Yeah. 

Adam Cox: Try and ground them up. I mean, that would have been 

Kyle Risi: a really great way of, like, Griselda just getting rid of the bodies.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Just send them to Burger 

Adam Cox: King, right? Oh, that's a disgusting thought.

Adam Cox: So the leader of the city's police, benevolent association cautions that criminal justice system in Miami has deteriorated so much to the point that the safety of civilians is no longer certain. And he recommends that ordinary citizens themselves should basically get a gun.

Adam Cox: It's always the answer. Just get a gun. To protect yourself. Yeah. And Griselda herself, um, still had to be on guard from opposing gangs and criminals going after her, so no one is safe at this point in time. Her youngest son, Michael, uh, her favourite, um, we assume, uh, since describing What? 

Kyle Risi: Why? Because he's the youngest?

Kyle Risi: Well, that's what we assume. He either is the favourite or 

Adam Cox: isn't. I don't know, yeah, good point. I might have just been made that up. Anyway. 

Kyle Risi: Is it because you're the youngest and you, you objectively know you're the favourite? 

Adam Cox: No, I don't think I'm the favourite. You, 

Kyle Risi: you don't think you're the favourite? I'm, I'm, no.

Kyle Risi: I mean, you're the best one. Like, seriously. 

Adam Cox: Um. Her youngest son, Michael, has since described what life was like growing up.

Adam Cox: He admits he had no real childhood and lived the life of a teen de capo, uh, which is like the head of a crime organization. And he's risking his life every time he leaves the house. He was told, you're a blanco, so when you drive, make sure you've got a lot of people in the cars driving around you, , because, and you need to have a gun right under your thigh.

Adam Cox: Because he's He's just such a risk. He's a risk, yeah, because he's part of the Blanco family. Right. And he's involved to some degree as he gets older. He needs to be on 

Kyle Risi: the lookout. So his life growing up is just like, or at this stage is just like, 

Adam Cox: always on guard. Yeah, he survived seven assassinate He survived seven assassination attempts as a child.

Adam Cox: From other 

Kyle Risi: rival gangs and people that they've annoyed. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, so they had to have guards guarding him 24 hours a day. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, but it wasn't all doom and gloom. He wasn't but it wasn't all doom and gloom He was treated to a luxurious lifestyle His mother was very glamorous and would look after herself and she would throw these lavish parties at her Miami mansion. Mm hmm

Adam Cox: She made her, she made, she made sure her sons were well looked after. And really they were the people she ever truly trusted, given the number of enemies she had. She even paid for herself and her family members to get dental work that was nicknamed the Burt Reynolds grill at the time Costing around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per person back in 1976 What on earth for?

Adam Cox: Well, just to get new new set of teeth 

Kyle Risi: Oh, right. Okay. I thought like with some practical reason like if they if we die, then they can't identify who we 

Adam Cox: are Nothing just yet to look good to treat yourself, but a hundred fifty six thousand dollars for a set of new teeth Like you that's a lot now. It's a couple of grand from Turkey, right?

Kyle Risi: Oh, no, I think it's more than that, Adam. I think, yeah, I think sometimes it's like one grand per tooth. 

Adam Cox: Oh, yeah, but 

Kyle Risi: no, I, hmm. Depends on what you want to get, right? If you're just getting, 

Adam Cox: I don't know the differences. Like veneers, or are you getting implants? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's different. Legend has it, she was supposedly the first Colombian person in history to ever have the Hollywood grill back then.

Adam Cox: She reportedly brought, she reportedly bought diamonds from the first lady of Argentina, Eva Perón. Commissioned a bronze sculpture of herself which was at the entrance of her mansion and people would touch it for good luck. 

Kyle Risi: Are we, say that name again. Eva Perón. 

Adam Cox: That's First lady of Argentina. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that is, that's the famous Evita.

Adam Cox: So she's got her diamonds apparently. Wow. She also, uh, owned a tea set that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth II. Oh wow, okay. 

It's also said that Griselda was a little kinky, uh, she was It's also said that Griselda was a little kinky, uh, she apparently held regular orgies, uh, but she would hold a gun to your head to perform at these drug fueled parties.

Adam Cox: Really? 

Kyle Risi: In what way? Like, to perform like, don't stop or I'll shoot ya? Or like 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess, a little risky, 

Adam Cox: I don't know, a. she also had a dog, a guard dog, named Hitler. So she has a, weird sense of humour. I don't like her too much. Police are well aware that Grisalda Blanco is alive and running her operation, but her exact whereabouts are still not known.

Adam Cox: Informants revealed that Blanco had placed her three older sons, Uber, Osvaldo, and Dixon, in charge of her drug distribution in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami. And so while they knew about their son's roles, details about their whereabouts was pretty scarce as well. Given that Blanco's sons were really the only people she fully trusted, the DEA hoped to exploit the family's bond by gaining the trust of one of her sons.

Adam Cox: Uh, informants, or kind of colleagues, and so they needed to get an informant in within the family network. And so in April 1983, the guy leading the case, Bob Palumbo, finds What's his name? Palumbo? That's just, you're 

Kyle Risi: saying it weird. Sounds like a sandwich! 

Adam Cox: Don't diss Bob, alright? He's the one that brings down this operation.

Adam Cox: Okay, sorry. He finds a potential candidate, uh, named Jerry Gomez, a Colombian businessman serving time for, um, narcotics . And Gomez has connections with Blanco's three sons, and is believed to have an entry point into her organisation. And so the DEA plan to release What? What now? 

Kyle Risi: I don't know.

Kyle Risi: It's not even funny. You just said he had an entry point into an organisation and I just think that sounds dirty. I don't know what's wrong with me. A 

Adam Cox: Um, so the DEA planned to release him from prison and send him undercover to approach one of Blanco's sons. Offering to launder money for them.

Adam Cox: So that was the way it was a risky move as trusting a federal prisoner could backfire, but the DEA basically had no other option and they needed to find a way to get in. And so they arrange a meeting with Blanco's youngest son, Dixon, in California, hoping to gain his trust and eventually locate Griselda and the other sons.

Adam Cox: Initially, Jerry successfully gets to Dixon and brings him on board and manages to propose that he'll launder money for Griselda. Um, and he wears a wire to gather this evidence . And so Dixon seems unaware of being set up, so he gets his mum involved. And he accidentally says that his mum's moving between Miami and LA.

Adam Cox: So they've got a bit more of a whereabouts of where she is. However, it's unclear. Um, If they've done enough to draw Griselda out, and so they need to get a meeting with her . And so three weeks go by, and Gomez receives a call from Griselda herself, taking the bait. A meeting is arranged between Jerry Gomez and Griselda, and she's now operating out of California.

Adam Cox: She invites Gomez to meet her at this LA hotel. Now, despite the pressure, Bob Palumbo must resist the urge to arrest her immediately, because he knows she's gonna be turning up, but he needs more evidence to, uh, convict her. So Jerry Gomez is given a wire for the meeting, and he's on the edge of his seat, and he waits in this hotel for Griselda.

Adam Cox: Because she's unpredictable. He has no idea what she might do, because she has good form for just putting out a gun. She might marry him and then kill him. Yeah. But would happily kill you in front of other people. Not a problem for her. You've got nothing going on. You've got nothing going on. Um, there's also this fear that Jerry might make a mistake and offend Griselda or just mess up this whole operation because he's putting his life in danger. And during that meeting, Jerry becomes very nervous right up to when Griselda approaches him and he's so fearful that he can barely string a sentence together and that's coherent.

Adam Cox: And for someone like Griselda, you know, she has very good instincts on whether to trust someone after all this time. And so she doesn't necessarily buy what's going on. She senses something is off. And so Jerry's like, Oh, am I going to get shot here? But she actually just backs away and leaves because just doesn't.

Adam Cox: Doesn't want to be involved. Yeah, yeah. And so they think the operation is blown, but actually when they re listen back to some of the recordings, there is one bit of information that could prove useful. An address of an LA distributor. And so a warrant is obtained to search this property, and the property's pretty nice, it's nothing too elaborate, but probably not to draw too much attention to it.

Adam Cox: Okay. And they have to act quick before they risk losing Blanco again. So on February the 17th, 1985, the detective, Bob Palumbo, Pulls up at the address he looks around it, it looks pretty standard for that particular area, but he soon sees a child emerging from the doorway accompanied by an unknown woman.

Adam Cox: Okay. so he grabs his binoculars, he looks through the windows and there she is, there's Griselda Blanco, he's got her. Wow. There's a chance to take her down, , because who knows when they'll get another chance. So the detective calls for back up and waits in an unmarked police car And eventually, once they turn up, they check their weapons and they start to approach the house.

Adam Cox: And they approach the side door of the house. uh, while others are surrounding the property. And inside the house, it's pretty empty and they're expecting like to be guards around and just more people, but it's quiet. And so they drop their weapons for a bit because they're like, well, hang on, what's going on here?

Adam Cox: Something seems a bit sus. They kick down the door and they find Griselda Blanco in a state of semi undress in bed reading the Bible. 

Kyle Risi: Well I'm just reading the Bible. I'm learning all about 

Adam Cox: Jesus. I'm not doing anything weird. So she's obviously seen them. I don't know because I think she was very surprised and wasn't expecting this ambush and it turns out later in life she does become a reformed Christian again but I don't know if it was at this point or after she's caught.

Adam Cox: Oh hang on 

Kyle Risi: so are you saying That this wasn't staged, that she has got this real big separation between her gangster life and like her home life. I guess 

Adam Cox: so, but I would have thought she would have had more guards around because her sons had to guard growing up. So I just don't know if she just let her guard down this particular day, .

Adam Cox: But something was obviously on the side of the police's luck because it was relatively easy to take her down this time. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and it makes me think that, like, if she is this huge, formidable, kind of huge drug cartel drug lord or queen pin, then this doesn't make sense to me. You, you, if you're living your life where you have to constantly make sure that your children have got bodyguards and I've got guns with them and they've got people around them.

Kyle Risi: You're the same? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: you'd have thought so. I think that she's planned this, like she spotted them and she was like, quickly everyone leave. I'm gonna just get dressed in my dowdy outfit and get the Bible out and get into bed. 

Adam Cox: It's an interesting theory, and maybe, but I don't think she ever wanted to be taken down.

Adam Cox: And the reason I say that is because, um, when Palumbo greets her, he's like, actually really happy to see her, that he actually even kisses her on the cheek, because he say's I finally found you after all these years. the only kind of protection she had, there was a gun on the dresser, which she couldn't reach in time. So, yeah, I think she generally let her guard down.

Adam Cox: And Palumbo says that, after being arrested, she portrays this tough and distant demeanour, a common trait apparently among Colombians. She shows little emotion, but during the car ride to Los Angeles, she's in the backseat with him, and there's another agent driving. And her demeanor just changes dramatically all of a sudden, um, as they approach the courthouse.

Adam Cox: And Palumbo says, she becomes visibly shaken, she's trembling, and she grabbed his arm, like, tightly, and suddenly she just vomits on his shoulder, and it's mostly bile that comes up, as I guess maybe she just felt sick inside, and everything was crumbling around her.

Kyle Risi: Okay, so what you're saying is that she is just like, this is 

Adam Cox: the end. Yeah, it's all come crashing down, she managed to do all this. and survived so long, and now it's ended, Wow.

Adam Cox: with Griselda now caught, it doesn't take long for the DEA to catch up with her sons within a few months. Her three elder sons are successfully captured in sting operations, uh, not the band, and marking the end of Blanco's reign as the deadliest female cocaine boss in history. And it brings her criminal family to justice.

Adam Cox: She's sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking offenses in New York. Um, and during her time in prison, uh, she faces three more charges of first degree murder in Florida. The prosecution struck a deal with a guy called George Ayala. Who is one of Blanco's trusted hitmen, uh, who agreed to testify against her.

Adam Cox: However, the case fell apart due to legal technicalities stemming from a scandal involving this bodyguard and his involvement in phone sex with two female secretaries from the state attorney's office. fell out of court, they couldn't use it in the end. Wow. Um, so she's never really convicted of violent crimes that she actually did.

Adam Cox: It's just drug trafficking. I mean, 

Kyle Risi: it's. Pretty serious crime. 

Adam Cox: Drug trafficking. I think she does plead guilty to three counts of second degree murder, and she does receive these concurrent sentences for those three murders of 20 years.

Adam Cox: Okay, 

Kyle Risi: for a total of 20 years she goes 

Adam Cox: to jail. Yeah, It's just strange how she's able to escape all this prosecution from all the other crimes. Yeah, they can't make it stick. Yeah, and she faces the death penalty, but she manages to avoid that. as well.

Adam Cox: Oh. Um, I was listening to an interview with her youngest son, Michael, and he talks about how Pablo Escobar would send him letters to take to his mother when she was in prison. And he would sneakily open them to read what was in them. Oh, they banged!

Adam Cox: No, he was just like, oh, well, Pablo's writing to my mom. What's he, what's he telling her? And apparently, he would send her words to keep her spirits up and give her motivation to keep going because he owed a lot to her. Yeah. Um, so I thought that was quite sweet for these murderers to, I don't know, bond over this mutual respect.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess 

Kyle Risi: so. Yeah. Definitely banged. 

Adam Cox: All of her sons face some kind of public, all of her sons face some kind of punishment. The youngest is placed under house arrest, whilst the oldest three serve time in prison. They're released in 1992 and deported back to Colombia, however, staying in jail might have been safer for them.

Adam Cox: Because Osvaldo, the first of Griselda's sons, is killed in a machine gun attack at a welcome home party. Oh god. Welcome home! Yeah. Bang. You're dead. Griselda, uh, she's distraught, uh, in her American jail cell when she learns of this, and she sends a message threatening retribution to be read out at his funeral.

Adam Cox: By the priest. 

Kyle Risi: The priest! 

Adam Cox: I don't know whether he did, or I don't know whether he did, or Oh, he did. Um, yeah, maybe it was a corrupt priest, who knows. Uh, Dixon, one of the other sons, he seeks revenge by torturing and killing his brother's murderer by stabbing him through the head with a screwdriver.

Adam Cox: Oh god. But he soon meets his own death along with his brother, Uber. So now all three sons are dead. God. Griselda is eventually granted compassionate release in 2004 after suffering poor health from a heart attack, uh, due to years of smoking. She is deported back to Colombia where she practices as a She is deported back to Colombia where she practices Christianity and keeps a relatively low profile in Medellín.

Adam Cox: On 3rd of December 2012, however, Griselda, now 69 years of age, enters a butcher shop, appearing just like a regular old lady to the shop owner. Little does he know that she's the notorious Black Widow responsible for this big drug empire. Griselda Blanco steps onto the street, she notices a man on a motorbike speeding towards her.

Adam Cox: And just like that, Griselda is shot dead in the head by a motorcycle drive by killing. Really? 

Kyle Risi: On the very drive by shooting method that she invented? 

Adam Cox: Exactly. Isn't that some kind of weird comeuppance, karma, whatever 

Kyle Risi: it is? Yeah, um, so she just got shot dead right there on the street. Do we know who it 

Adam Cox: was?

Adam Cox: Nope. Just, I guess, a rival gang. We don't know. I think it's described as some man in his forties or ,fifties that did it. 

Kyle Risi: Damn.

Adam Cox: And that is the rise and fall of the cocaine godmother, Griselda Blanco. 

Kyle Risi: It was really good. 

Adam Cox: Good. I think, given her story and her rise and the fact that she's a woman and everything like that. There's just a lot of, um, interest in her story. So not only, uh, is Sofia Vergara playing her in Netflix, Catherine Zeta Jones portrayed her in a film in 2018, and J Lo is set to play her in another movie.

Adam Cox: Oh really? That would be terrible. Yeah, it doesn't, it didn't feel right. 

Kyle Risi: No, not J Lo, Catherine Zeta Jones, brilliant. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, although she's not Colombian, 

Kyle Risi: I mean, if there's anything like me where you confuse your accents, she's Welsh accent, Laos, Columbia. Yeah, fair point.

 Her son, Michael, was actually offended the way that they kind of, um, portray her because I think Sophia has these prosthetics that she had put on to , I guess, tone down some of her natural beauty to make her a bit more sort of Harle based. And he was a bit like, but my mum was actually pretty glamorous when obviously she was a free woman.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Wow. Okay Yeah, there's some good pictures of her. Yeah, she's really glamorous when she was younger. 

Adam Cox: So she managed to have a 2 billion net worth.

Adam Cox: The only woman to ever make the top 10 richest criminals. She was richer than Al Capone. And the richest being Pablo Escobar with 30 billion fortune. Wow. and And her son, Michael, is still alive, um, and as I said, he's kind of criticised some of the adaptations that have been made of her, , he was never consulted on the family's history, um, so I think he's actually threatened to sue, uh, Netflix and Sophia, but I think that's been dismissed or settled now.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I 

Kyle Risi: mean, come on, you are from one of the most dangerous families in the world. Yeah. Who you lie, you steal, you kill, you do all these things. Like, even if someone did consult you. is going to be a biased view of it. And also, people are probably terrified. Netflix are like, uh, uh, 

Adam Cox: I don't want to get involved.

Kyle Risi: Possibly. They invented the drive by motorcycle shooting. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Well, he's left that world behind now. He actually has Plur Pure Blanco But he says, like, there's no winners here because he had to bury 22 members of his family. So he recognises His mum was no saint, but she was a, you know, a good mum to him, if that makes sense, I guess.

Adam Cox: Well, he was youngest and the favourite. Yeah, yeah. But he still seems to be playing on his family's history because if we go to his company's website, uh, Pure Blanco, on the homepage you've got models wearing his clothes whilst holding guns, and then you have a Black Widow Spider animation on the site, and the logo says it's established in 1943, which I think is the year that Griselda was born.

Adam Cox: Right. So it's heavily leaning into his family. Yeah, yeah, he's 

Kyle Risi: capitalising on it. But 

Adam Cox: I mean, that's his right. Yeah, exactly, and it is his history, and he's the only person around now that we probably can truly trust his word, I guess? Um, but yeah, that, that's it. Well 

Kyle Risi: done. 

Adam Cox: I loved it. 

Kyle Risi: It was really good. 

Adam Cox: Let's do the outro. Uh huh. And so we come to The end of another episode of The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then please subscribe and leave us a review.

Adam Cox: And don't just stop there, schedule your episodes to download automatically, because doing this not only ensures you're always in the loop, but also boosts our visibility, helping us to serve you even more captivating tales straight to your ears. You can follow us on the Instagram, you can follow us on Instagram at thecompendiumpodcast, or visit our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast.

Adam Cox: com. We release new episodes every Tuesday, and so until then, remember, Griselda Blanco is a cautionary tale of unchecked ambition, because you should be careful on who you stand on, on the way to the top, as you're most likely to meet them on your way back down. Arrgh! Until next week, see 

Kyle Risi: ya! See ya later!