The Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami ¿From fiction to reality?

The Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami, better known as a biographical series about the Colombian Griselda Blanco, has generated many stories and myths, bringing to light dozens of tales about the drug trafficker.

Following the release of the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami, “Griselda” has become the most-watched show on Netflix in the United States. “Griselda Blanco,” the main character, is one of the most searched names on Google currently.

The six-episode series stars Sofia Vergara, one of Hollywood’s most famous Latina actresses. The Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami portrays a part of the story of the Colombian drug trafficker who came to control the drug empire in Miami during the 1980s.

The Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami depicts the wars of the Colombian drug lord, “Griselda,” through a “fictional dramatization based on real events,” making it not so easy to distinguish between reality and fiction as the plot unfolds.

In the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami, a mother of four sons is shown who built her own army, faced off against the Medellín drug lords, hired prostitutes to be her mules, and ordered the murders of men, women, and even children to defend her territory.

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—Netflix Series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami: Reality or Fiction—

The Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami is analyzed by journalists close to the story. The BBC spoke with Colombian journalist José Guarnizo, who has been researching Griselda Blanco’s story for 12 years and is about to publish a second book about her with Planeta Publishing.

Guarnizo shared with BBC Mundo the manuscript of the 150-page book, which bears the same name as the Netflix series and allows for contrasting how much the fiction of “Griselda” resembles Blanco’s reality.

—About Griselda Blanco’s Husbands—

Regarding the husbands and the myth of the black widow, the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami has a great deal of truth.

In the series, Griselda had two husbands, but in reality, she had three.

The first was José Darío Trujillo, known as Pestañas. They married when she was 14 years old and had three children.

It was with him that Griselda began in the drug business, and according to some testimonies, that marriage was the most significant for her.

However, there are different versions regarding Trujillo’s death. “Several books say she had him killed, but that’s not true. I was able to confirm that he died in New York, that he had cirrhosis, and that they had to repatriate the body,” explains Guarnizo.

The second husband was Alberto Bravo, who briefly appears in the series with his real name. With him, she set up a currency exchange house in Medellín, consolidated drug shipments to New York, and together they managed to leave Barrio Antioquia.

Bravo was the stepfather of her first three children, who started attending a private school and enjoying greater comforts in the 1970s.

In the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami, Griselda herself kills Bravo for forcing her to have sexual relations with his brother to settle a debt, but in reality, there is no evidence of these events.

Some time later, and already living in Miami, Griselda meets her third husband, Darío Sepúlveda, who is a central character in the series.

It was with him that she had her fourth child, Michael Corleone Sepúlveda Blanco, named after the fictional character from the novel “The Godfather,” written by Mario Puzo and brought to the screen by Francis Ford Coppola.

Apparently, Sepúlveda was murdered for personal reasons, as depicted in the fiction.

About Griselda Blanco’s Children: The Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen

Griselda’s children are secondary characters in the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami and appear with their real names. Uber, Dixon, and Oswaldo (Ozzie in the series) were the children she had with her first husband, and the youngest, Michael Corleone, with the last.

One of the most dramatic moments in the series is when she flees with her four children to California, after the war with the Medellín cartel forced her out of Miami.

However, it was not true that she surrendered to authorities as a strategy to escape her enemies.

And the capture apparently was more cinematic in real life than in the series because “the DEA agent had promised to give her a kiss if he managed to capture her, and that’s what he did when he found her reading the bible.”

In the fiction, on the other hand, the capture is led by the character of June Hawkins, a detective in the Miami police who suffers discrimination from her male colleagues.

Hawkins is a real character who assisted with Griselda’s capture. It is also known that Hawkins met with the actress who portrays her in the series.

In the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami, the three eldest children die before her, but in reality, there are indications that Dixon survived.

“Uber was murdered in Medellín in a drug deal, and Oswaldo was ordered to be killed by Pablo Escobar (others say Escobar’s subordinates, from La Catedral prison).

The middle one, Dixon, did survive and even lived with Griselda when she returned to Colombia, but he was addicted to various drugs and had a very dependent life,” Guarnizo recounts.

Finally, Michael Corleone is Griselda’s most well-known son. He is the only one alive today. Recently, he sued Netflix and Sofia Vergara, who is also an executive producer of the series, for telling his mother’s story without giving him compensation or attribution.

Regarding Griselda Blanco’s associates, it is known that she and Escobar met, but contrary to what has been said about a supposed friendship between them, they were enemies.

This tension between them led to the first war in Medellín in the late ’70s and ended up driving Griselda out of Colombia, leading her to seek her luck in Miami.

It is said that Griselda Blanco was the one who imposed the modality of motorcycle assassinations.

In the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen in Miami, the confrontation with the Ochoa brothers, who were part of the Medellín cartel, led by Fabio Ochoa and enjoyed a lot of power in the mafia world, is shown.

Marta was a cousin of the Ochoas, she lent merchandise to Griselda and ended up murdered by her.

—About Griselda’s Associates—

As for the characters Rafael and Papo, both actually existed, and those are their real names. Rafael Salazar, better known as Rafico, was a famous drug trafficker from Medellín.

Regarding Papo Mejía, Guarnizo confirms that the scene in which he is attacked by a Cuban sent by Griselda at an airport was real.

Mejía survived and started cooperating with justice. In the Netflix series about the Cocaine Queen, Griselda establishes herself in Miami thanks to her hitmen and a network of female prostitutes she knew from Medellín, whom she trains to travel periodically with drugs hidden among their clothes.

The strategy worked because at that time there were no X-rays in airports, but over time, drug traffickers had to find new ways to evade controls.

As for the hitmen, the series develops two key characters who indeed were part of Griselda’s life: Chucho and Rivi.

Chucho Castro’s story is the most dramatic.

Guarnizo recounts that Griselda knew him in Medellín since they were young and not by chance in a café in Miami as shown in the series.

What is true is that Griselda is responsible for the death of Jonny, Chucho’s 3-year-old son. Chucho himself confirmed this to Guarnizo.

“He told me that Johnny was shot from a car where Rivi was. They chase him and kill the child. What is not in the series is that Chucho puts his son’s body in a tub with ice, spends the whole night crying with his wife, and ends up handing the child over to the mosque.”

Chucho survived, almost miraculously, for many years until he died in 2023; his wife, Janeth, is still alive.

As for Jorge Rivera, Rivi, he is a character who was indeed involved in many of the events recreated in the series.

The main witness in the case against Griselda was Rivi, who, as shown in the series, ends up embroiled in a scandal over sexually explicit phone calls with an official, which ultimately affected the authorities’ plan.

Ultimately, Griselda did not receive life imprisonment or the death penalty, but she did spend 19 years in prison in the United States, not seven or 13 as indicated in the series.

After serving her sentence, Griselda returned to Medellín, where she lived for some time until she was murdered in 2012 at the age of 69.