The 2024 Netflix miniseries Griselda starred Sofía Vergara as Griselda Blanco, the real-life Colombian drug lord who played a central role in Miami's brutal drug war in the 1970s and 1980s. However, as dark as the plot of Griselda can achieve, the true story of the real Griselda Blanco is a much bloodier story. Sometimes, Griselda it almost paints Blanco's version of Vergara as some kind of anti-hero. When examining the true story of Griselda Blanco that inspired the show, however, it quickly becomes clear that this is far from an accurate representation of the woman who became known as “The Black Widow.”
The true story of Griselda Blanco reveals the inspiration behind Griselda It wasn't a woman who became a cruel drug lord to protect herself and her family. The 2024 Netflix miniseries exercised a lot of creative liberties in bringing Blanco's story to the screen to create a compelling central protagonist that viewers could empathize with. However, the real-life Colombian drug lord at the center of Griselda the true story is far from the pseudo-antihero that the Netflix miniseries portrays her to be.
The real drug lord who inspired Netflix's Griselda explained
Griselda Blanco is one of Colombia's most famous cocaine smugglers
Netflix miniseries Griselda was one of the best original shows to hit the streaming platform in 2024, and was instantly recognized as one of the best performances of Modern Family star Sofia Vergara. However, as grand as Vergara's titular character may seem, she is not fictional. Griselda is inspired by and at times loosely adapted from the rise to power of real-life Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco. The Netflix miniseries may have made several changes to specific details of the real story, but overall it portrayed how ruthless the real Griselda Blanco was in an incredibly authentic way.
However, Griselda on Netflix focused only on a specific period in Griselda Blanco's life, namely her move to the US and becoming a key player in the Miami drug war, which engulfed the Florida city in a brutal wave of violent crime. throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Although this was perhaps the most historically significant moment with regards to the real Griselda Blanco's rise to infamy as one of the most brutal Colombian drug traffickers involved in the international trade of narcotics, his early years were equally eventful.
Griselda Blanco was born in northern Colombia in 1943, but moved with her mother to Medellín, also known for the notorious Medellín cartel, when she was 3 years old. She became an active criminal from a young age, including allegedly kidnapping and murdering another child when she was just 11 years old. (through Maximum). However, outside of this incident, it is unknown whether she committed any more murders in her youth. All that has been confirmed regarding Griselda Blanco's activities at this time is that she mainly committed petty crimes, such as pickpocketing, until she reached adulthood. However, by the age of 20, she was involved in smuggling narcotics from Colombia to the United States.
What crimes did the real Griselda Blanco commit
The Netflix miniseries has barely scratched the surface
Griselda on Netflix did not hesitate to portray Vergara's semi-fictionalized version of Griselda Blanco as a violent criminal, who is not afraid to end lives if she finds it necessary to promote or protect her interests. However, the real Griselda Blanco was far more ruthless than her on-screen counterpart and responsible for considerably more deaths than the Netflix miniseries portrayed. The exact number of murders committed by Griselda Blanco is unknown, but it is believed that she may be responsible, directly or through instructions to her subordinates, for more than 200 deaths. (through Deputy).
As the Netflix miniseries also showed, several of Griselda Blanco's victims were her husbands. It is widely believed that the murder of Blanco's first husband, Carlos Trujillo, was carried out on her orders due to a failed business deal (although they were divorced at the time of her death). This occurred many years before the events described in Griselda, and it happened while she and Trujillo operated a cannabis trafficking ring in Colombia.
Although Sophia Vergara's version of Blanco is initially portrayed as a reluctant newcomer to this endeavor, the true story is very different.
The murder of Griselda Blanco's second husband, Alberto Bravo (played in Griselda by Alberto Ammann), was a notable event during the first episode of the Netflix miniseries. However, while Griselda accurately portrays the fact that Blanco is believed to have ended Bravo's life with his own hands, there is no evidence to suggest this was revenge for a forced sexual encounter. In the Netflix miniseries, Blanco executes Bravo after he forces her to sleep with his brother. In fact, this probably never happened and it is believed that the real Griselda Blanco killed Alberto Bravo due to a business dispute.
As for the drug smuggling activities of the real Griselda Blanco, the Netflix show focuses on her involvement in the drug war in Miami. However, although Sophia Vergara's version of Blanco is initially portrayed as a reluctant newcomer to this venture, the true story is very different. The real Griselda Blanco had already run a thriving drug operation in New York alongside Alberto Bravo, and was involved much more directly than Griselda insinuated. This lasted from 1964 until she and Bravo were forced to flee back to Columbia in 1975 after authorities identified them as the leaders of the operation.
This is perhaps the biggest deviation from the real story when it comes to how Griselda Blanco's entry into the Miami drug trade was portrayed in Griselda. Blanco's version of Sophia Vergara was portrayed as a woman forced to understand the complexities of the international drug smuggling trade as it went along, not being used to running such a large-scale operation alone. In real life, Griselda Blanco was already an efficient, experienced and ruthless professional criminal when she arrived in Miami in the late 1970s.
How the real Griselda Blanco died
The violent drug dealer met a violent end
Griselda Blanco was arrested in 1985 following a DEA raid on her home, at which time it was thought she was dealing in the illegal importation of at least 300 kg of cocaine per month. (through Business Insider). She was tried in New York City and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, her sentence was increased in 1998 to three 20-year terms following her conviction on three counts of second-degree murder, to which she pleaded guilty.
Blanco's death was not covered Griselda but it was as dramatic as anything portrayed in the Netflix miniseries.
Although it appeared that Griselda Blanco would eventually die in prison, she was released in 2004 on compassionate grounds due to health issues. She was extradited back to Colombia, where she remained until her death in 2012. While it is not thought that the real Griselda Blanco returned to her life of crime during those years, it is clear that she was unable to escape her past.
Blanco's death was not covered Griselda but it was as dramatic as anything portrayed in the Netflix miniseries. In September 2012 while visiting a local butcher's shop with her daughter-in-law, Griselda Blanco was shot twice in the head by an unknown killer on a motorcycle. This style of execution was deliberate, as it was Blanco's preferred method when ordering many of the murders she sanctioned during her time as one of the central figures in Miami's underworld.
What the Netflix Show Changed About the True Story
Along with many small changes to details, Griselda Blanco was portrayed as a more sympathetic character
While Griselda portrayed many aspects of the real Griselda Blanco and her rise in the Miami narcotics trade accurately in a broader sense, there were also many changes made to her character and story for the 2024 miniseries. Griselda frames Blanco as a character that viewers can empathize with, especially in the earlier episodes.
However, the real-life Griselda Blanco was not a victim of circumstances or the crime of necessity that the miniseries portrays her as. She was ruthless and calculated when it came to the violence and bloodshed she caused. However, it had Griselda If it showed her personality more accurately, she wouldn't have been a suitable protagonist. Viewers would have found it impossible to see her as anything other than a villain in her own story, which makes this particular creative decision by Netflix somewhat understandable.
However, Griselda nor did it entirely shy away from the true nature of the real Griselda Blanco. Many moments in the miniseries delved into how dark his inclinations became during the height of his power and as his downfall approached. The most prominent example of this are the group sex parties where Blanco forced people to become intimate at gunpoint. Ultimately, like many Netflix shows inspired by true crime and real criminals, Griselda is a semi-fictionalized adaptation of real events, and the changes made are designed to transform historical facts into an engaging narrative.