Who’s the Real Boss?

This chapter explores the mediac rebirth of Colombia’s so-called Cocaine Queen of the 1970s, whose criminal reign extended from Medellín to New York and Miami. It argues that Blanco’s posthumous celebrity status in popular culture took place once the media’s interest in Escobar and narcocultura became a well-established trend. This is evidenced by the emergence of two biographies, the telenovela La viuda negra, and extensive press coverage, all of which invariably compare her notoriety to that of Escobar. Also worthy of note is the Colombian influence on cocaine trafficking in Miami, where extreme violence and cash flow changed the city’s character from a mecca for retirees to a refashioned Wild West. Informed on Billy Corben’s documentaries Cocaine Cowboys (two installments) and Max Marmelstein’s criminal autobiography The Man Who Made It Snow, this chapter examines Griselda Blanco’s brutality as a narca in the U.S., her relationship with Pablo Escobar, and her volatile marriages and partners’ suspicious deaths, as well as her position in the drug trade, where her extreme cruelty kept her hitmen both in check and in constant admiration.