‘Griselda’s Carmen Gutierrez Isn’t One, but Two Real-Life People
I watched Netflix’s Griselda for Sofia Vergara and my fascination with mafias, but I stayed for the stories of the other female characters in the series. Griselda Blanco was an interesting figure, but so was every other important female character around her in the story.
June Hawkins, for instance, was an intelligent homicide detective. She was also depicted as an underdog like Griselda, but she didn’t go down the bloody path Griselda did in order to prove her worth. Naturally, the other character who piqued my interest was Griselda’s friend Carmen Gutierrez.
But she’s not a real person, likely based on two real women who Griselda Blanco was involved with. Interestingly, these two people have both parts of Carmen’s name.
Carmen Caban was a former drug dealer-turned-witness against Griselda Blanco. Her testimony shed light on Blanco’s involvement in cocaine importing from 1972 to 1975. In the series, Carmen Gutierrez was given a plea deal if she became a witness against Blanco. It’s likely that these events were inspired by Caban’s testimony.
Another woman from whom Carmen Gutierrez takes inspiration is Maria Gutierrez. She worked with Blanco as a travel agent. Somewhere along the way, she turned against Griselda and became an informant for the DEA.
In the Netflix series, Carmen Gutierrez was once married to a man involved in New York’s drug cartels. The first few episodes show that Carmen was done with “the life” and started clean by establishing her own travel agency and divorcing her abusive husband for good. She was the first person Griselda decided to call for refuge. Carmen allowed the family of four to stay under her roof and only kicked them out after she found out that Griselda smuggled cocaine into her house from Colombia.
(featured image: Netflix)
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