27 January 2024 , 18:28
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Griselda Blanco, known as the Cocaine Grandmother, has been brought to life for Netflix viewers amid a storm of controversy.
The woman, who invented motorbike drive-by killings and is linked to numerous ruthless murders, ran one of history's most profitable drug cartels. Blanco made more than £60million each month before her assassination in 2012. She earned her place in the criminal underworld through a series of brutal killings. The Drug Enforcement Administration said in 1993: "Griselda loved killings. Bodies lined the streets of Miami as a result of her feuds.
She surrounded herself with a group of henchmen known as the Pistoleros. To join the group, one had to kill someone and cut off a body part as proof. She killed rivals, lovers, and even used murder to cancel debts she didn't want to pay. A particularly bloody massacre in a Miami shopping centre in July 1979 became known as the Dadeland Massacre.
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Sofia Vergara as Griselda Blanco (NETFLIX)She's thought to have caused more than 250 deaths, often in the middle of the day. Some think she may have killed up to 2,000 people. Former Miami detective Nelson Abreu said Griselda was scarier than any man in the drug world. He said: "People were so afraid of her that her reputation preceded her wherever she went."
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One sad story is when Griselda was blamed for killing a little boy named Johnny Castro who was just two years old in February 1982. She wanted to hurt his dad Jesus Castro because she thought he had been rude to her sons.
Sofia is playing Griselda in her new Netflix show (Netflix)
Griselda's crimes are horrifying (WIKI)But things went very wrong when the people she paid to do it made a mistake and shot the little boy instead. It's said Griselda was actually happy about the boy's death "because it would upset the father."
In 1994, one of her ex-workers, Jorge Ayala, decided to speak out against her, and she ended up being charged with three murders. To try and get a shorter time in jail, she said she was guilty in 1998.
Griselda was in jail for 10 years and then sent back to Colombia. But she couldn't escape her past, and she was killed outside a meat shop in 2012 when she was 69.
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to [email protected]