Griselda Blanco

Griselda Blanco Restrepo (February 14, 1943 – September 3, 2012) was a Colombian drug lord who was prominent in the cocaine-based drug trade and underworld of Miami, during the 1970s through the early 2000s, and who has also been claimed by some to have been part of the Medellín Cartel. She was shot dead in Medellín on September 3, 2012, at the age of 69.

Griselda Blanco Restrepo was born in Cartagena, Colombia, on the country's north coast. She and her mother, Ana Restrepo, moved south to Medellín when she was three years old; this exposed her to a criminal lifestyle at an impressionable age, as Medellín was enduring years of its own socioeconomic and political troubles. Blanco's former lover, Charles Cosby, recounted that, at the age of 11, she allegedly kidnapped, attempted to ransom, and ultimately shot a child from an upscale neighborhood near her home. Blanco had become a pickpocket before she was a teenager. To escape the sexual abuse of her mother's boyfriend, she ran away from home at the age of 19, thieving in the city center until the age of 20. It is speculated that she may have engaged in prostitution to better support herself financially during this time.

Blanco was a key figure in the establishment of the cocaine trade between Colombia and large North American cities like Miami and New York, as well as to dealers in California. Her distribution network, which spanned across the United States and Colombia, earned $80 million per month.