Sofia Vergara to Play the Role of Medellin Cartel's Black Widow Griselda Blanco in a Netflix Series

Sofia Vergara is set to play Griselda Blanco, one of the well-known drug lords in Colombia, in a new Netflix limited series.

Griselda will comprise of six episodes showing the real life of Blanco. The limiter series will be written by Ingrid Escajeda known for Empire and Justified. She will also be the showrunner and executive producer, according to a Deadline report.

The creative team behind Netflix's Narcos such as Eric Newman, Doug Miro, Andres Baiz, and Carlo Bernard will also be involved in the series. Colombian native Baiz will direct all six episodes.

Meanwhile, Vergara will also serve as executive producer of the new series along with Luis Balaguer for Latin World Entertainment.

Vergara said that Blanco was a larger-than-life character whose tactics had allowed her to rule a billion-dollar empire before many of the notorious male kingpins.

The Colombian actress said they are thrilled to have found the partners to help bring the story of her life to the screen.

Newman said that Blanco has long been a passion project for Sofia. He added that with the creative team and partners, means they have a very exciting series to share with audiences.

Aside from Vergara, Jennifer Lopez was also said to portray the role of Blanco in the film The Godmother, which is a project she was also said to direct.

Black Widow Griselda Blanco of Medellin Cartel

Blanco was known as the Cocaine Godmother and for her ruthless and brutal ways in pursuit of money and power.

Blanco is also one of the famous drug lords in the Miami-based cocaine trade. She had earned several monikers during her stint as a notorious drug lord, such as La Madrina, the Black Widow, and the Queen of Narco-Trafficking.

Blanco reportedly entered into a life of crime from a young age, according to The Sun report. Some claimed that at the age of 11-years-old, she helped kidnap a boy before killing him when she could not secure a ransom. Other reports noted that she worked as a pickpocket and prostitute.

Her second husband, Alberto Bravo, involved her in the world of drug trafficking. Bravo was known to be a trafficker for the Medellin Cartel, which is the world's biggest and most infamous drug trafficker.

Blanco, with her husband, became the first Colombian drug lord to export the product of the cartel to the United States before the notorious Pablo Escobar.

La Madrina reportedly used young women as drug miles and provided them custom-made lingerie to carry packets of cocaine.

Blanco's peak of career earned her around $80 million per month, according to Britannica. She embraced her life of crime by naming one of her sons Michael Corleone, a character from The Godfather series.

In 1984, she moved to California out of fear for her life after rivals targeted her. The following year, she was arrested and brought to New York to face the 1975 drug charges.

She was also implicated in more than 200 murders aside from her drug charges. One of her hitmen, Jorge Ayala, testified against her.

In 1998, she pled guilty to all charges against her in exchange of a shortened sentence. She returned to Colombia and was killed in 2012 by a gunman on a motorcycle after leaving a butcher shop.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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