The True Story of Griselda Blanco: Sofía Vergara Stars In A New Biopic About Her Life
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Sofía Vergara is taking on her first role since the final season of Modern Family six years ago, and it is like nothing she's ever done before.
Vergara co-produced and stars in Netflix's Griselda, a new biopic from the creators of Narcos. Set in Miami in the '70s and '80s, Vergara portrays one of the most notorious cocaine queenpins of all time: Griselda Blanco. Griselda's Columbian roots, ruthless nature, and knowledge of the drug trade earned her respect and billions of dollars before her arrest.
"Most of the people know of Griselda as the ruthless, violent drug lord that she was,” Vergara said in the press notes. “So we were very careful not to glorify her in the series. But we also wanted to take time to uncover the deeper story of Griselda, how beyond all odds, a poor, uneducated woman from Colombia managed to create a massive, multi-billion dollar empire in a male-dominated industry, in a country that was not her own, through tactics that she devised that were both ingenious and cruel."
Who was the real Griselda Blanco?
Griselda Blanco was born Griselda Blanco Restrepo in Cartagena, Columbia on Valentine's Day of 1943. When she was just three years old, Blanco moved with her mother to Medellín, Columbia, where she was first exposed to the criminal lifestyle and the cartel. Blanco's mother was a prostitute, and it is thought that Blanco was abused by some of her mother's clients as a child.
As an adult, Blanco immigrated from Columbia to New York City with her husband and three young sons. This is where she first began her drug smuggling empire before being indicted in 1975. Before her arrest, Blanco fled back to Columbia, later returning to the United States in the late '70s when she moved to Miami.
Griselda is thought to be one of the first to participate in large-scale smuggling of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, according to the BBC. She even created some of the smuggling routes later used by members of the Medellín cartel including her rival Pablo Escobar. In Miami, she became well-known by several nicknames including La Jefa (the boss), Godmother, and Black Widow. At the height of her career, Griselda's net worth was estimated to be over $2 billion.
In 1985 Griselda was arrested and charged by the DEA and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While in prison she was also charged with 3 counts of first degree murder which, due to an issue with the key witness, was reduced to a plea deal where she pled guilty to 3 counts of second degree murder, resulting in an additional 20 year sentence. In 2004 after suffering a heart attack in prison, Griselda was released due to health problems and deported back to Columbia.
Eight years after being released from prison, Griselda was assassinated in 2012 at the age of 69. She was shot twice by an assailant on a motorcycle as she was leaving the butcher in Medellín. This assassination style was commonly used by Griselda's hitmen, as it enabled them to escape the scene of the crime quickly.
How to Watch 'Griselda'
Griselda is available to watch on Netflix now. The biopic is a limited series with a runtime of six hours. Vergara describes the series as the origin story of "the making of a monster."
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