We all watch films and wonder if the villains are based on real people and are they truly as depicted on screen? The answer in the case of the Pacino film "Scarface" is a resounding yes, and the twist is, the cocaine kingpin was a woman, not a man. What was different between her and the fictional Tony Montana, is that she had far, far more people killed than Montana, and that made her much more dangerous than ole Tony. This woman was Colombian Griselda Blanco, born on the Colombian coast town of Cartegena on February 15th 1943. At the age of three, she and her mother moved to Medellin, that area that has become infamous worldwide for cocaine. She turned to crime ata very early age, attempting a kidnap and extortion at the age of just 11. Not long after, she graduated to being a pickpocket, and at 14, she ran away from her mother and worked as a prostiyute in Medellin.
She married her first husband Carlos Trujillo at the age of 20 and had three sons by him. She later married a man named Alberto Bravo and they moved from Colombia to Queens in New York, where they started selling cocaine in the mid-70`s, but she was indicted on federal drug charges, so she fled back to Colombia. That was at that time the biggest cocaine case in US history. She re-entered the States settling in Miami, and setting up the biggest cocaine organisation in US history. It also marked an astronomical rise in drug-related murders in Miami. Blanco is credited with devising the two men on a motorcycle hit, popularly used around the world. She was bringing into the States at least $80,000,000 worth of cocaine every month. Believed to have organised or okayed more than 200 murders, it brought a big effort from Law Enforcement to bring her down and end what was known as the "Cocaine Cowboy Wars"
But all this drugs, money and mayhem brought numerous attempts to eliminate her, so she fled to California but still ruthlessly controlled her empire. In February 1985, she was arrested by DEA agents and sentenced to fifteen years jail. One of her lieutenants was turned by authorities and she was indicted for three murders but the witness did an about-turn, so the case collapsed. After serving her time, she was deported back to Colombia. Her first three sons were all killed but she had a fourth by lover Dario Sepulveda but he went to Colombia, taking their son with him. This angered her and from prison she put a contract out on Sepulveda, having him killed in Colombia. Her son returned to Miami.
Her only surviving son was under house arrest in 2012, after being arrested on drugs charges. But the end for the female "Scarface" came on 3rd September 2012 when two men on a motorcycle shot and killed her. She died by the method she is credited with pioneering. Ironical, eh?
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