#4

Arrest

On February 18, 1985, she was arrested by cops in her home and held with full bail. After they sent her to prison she tried to escape, Blanco was sentenced to more than a decade in jail. While in prison, she continued to effectively run her cocaine business with the help of her son Michael Blanco.

By pressuring one of Blanco's lieutenants, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office obtained sufficient evidence to indict Blanco for three murders. However, the case collapsed due to technicalities relating to a phone sex scandal between the star witness and female secretaries in the District attorney's office. In 2002, Blanco suffered a heart attack while imprisoned.

In 2004, Blanco was released from prison and deported to Medellín, Colombia. Before her death in 2012, the last sighting of Blanco was in May 2007 at the Bogotá Airport.

Blanco's trial, which began in New York in June 1985, ended with a conviction on one count of conspiracy to manufacture, import into the United States, and distribute cocaine. Despite being accused of several Florida slayings, she escaped murder charges and was sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

In 1994, Blanco, now a federal prison inmate, was transported back to Miami on three murder charges. In a strange turn of events, however, the case was thrown out: The star witness in the case, a former hitman for Blanco named Jorge "Rivi" Ayala, had become romantically involved with a secretary in the Florida State Attorney's Office, causing prosecutors to worry about the credibility of Ayala's testimony on the stand. Some speculated that Ayala botched the case on purpose, fearing that he could be killed by members of Blanco's cartel if he testified.

Blanco ended up pleading guilty to the three murder charges, and following a deal with prosecutors, she received a 10-year sentence. In June 2004, she was released from prison and deported back to Colombia.

Murder

On the night of September 3, 2012, Blanco died after being shot twice; once in the head and once in the shoulder by a motorcyclist in Medellín, Colombia. She was shot at Cardoso butcher shop on the corner of 29th Street, after having bought $150 worth of meat; the middle-aged gunman climbed off the back of a motorbike outside the shop, entered, pulled out a gun, and shot Blanco two times before calmly walking back to his bike and disappearing into the city. She was 69.

She has been featured in several documentaries and films. She features prominently in the documentary films Cocaine Cowboys (2006) and Cocaine Cowboys 2 (2008; also written as Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' With the Godmother).

Catherine Zeta-Jones portrayed Blanco in Cocaine Godmother, a television biopic, which premiered in 2018 on Lifetime.

As of 2020, there are plans for producing a film titled The Godmother, starring Jennifer Lopez as Blanco.

On September 3, 2012, at age 69, Blanco was murdered in Medellin, Colombia. According to reports, two gunmen on motorcycles shot Blanco after she exited a butcher shop. At the time, some authorities went on record with "conservative" estimates that she was responsible for 40 deaths, though others pegged that number far higher, at around 200 victims.

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