Anyone in Mexico have gossip/inside info on female drug lord Sandra Avila Beltran?

[bausch]

I read ALL the articles from Google already, apparently she is the biggest female drug trafficker in Mexico, she was dating a big drug lord who was also arrested. Her ex husbands were in high positions in the police department who also smuggled drugs on the side and were executed. Her son was kidnapped and the kidnappers demanded $5 million US dollars which apparently ticked of the cops as to how she was making money. Plus I already know she dated a lot of big cartel leaders plus her uncle was a drug lord.

Also I read that the mexicans are obsessed with her, there was a song written about her and she is supposed to be high maintenace and even asked to retouch her makeup before she was televised being taken to jail, and she has been complaining about "bed bugs" in jail and is claiming that it is against her human rights that she can't have food from restaurants taken into her jail cell I love her already.

Anyone have any more news/gossip? I find her fascinating.

[Iron Fist]

[bausch]

MEXICO CITY - Blessed with charm and good looks, Sandra Avila Beltran is enthralling Mexico. Not as a beauty queen, but as an alleged drug lord, and the story of her arrest and possible extradition to the U.S. is being followed more closely than a telenovela.

Police say the raven-haired 46-year-old spent more than a decade working her way to the top echelons of Mexico’s male-dominated drug trade, uniting Colombian and Mexican gangs and seducing several notorious kingpins.

Dubbed the “Queen of the Pacific,” she even has her own song — a “narcocorrido” folk ballad about drug traffickers by Los Tucanes de Tijuana that pays homage to her as “a top lady who is a key part of the business.”
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Since her arrest last week, the song has been playing often on Mexican radio, and television stations are repeatedly broadcasting a video showing her coyly telling police that she is just a housewife and businesswoman. The clip had been seen 40,000 times on YouTube as of Thursday.

Romance allegedly united cocaine groups
Avila Beltran lived largely unnoticed in the northern cities of Guadalajara and Hermosillo until 2001. That’s when police found more than nine tons of cocaine on a ship in the Pacific port of Manzanillo and tracked the shipment to her and her 39-year-old lover, Juan Diego Espinoza Ramirez — known as “the Tiger” and also wanted by U.S. authorities.

It was her romance with Espinoza Ramirez that brought together two powerful cocaine organizations, Mexico’s Sinaloa gang and Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel, prosecutors say.

Officials say Avila Beltran was head of “public relations” for the Sinaloa cartel, an unprecedented role for a woman, and as such helped move cocaine from Colombia.

IMAGE: Sandra Avila Beltran
AP
Sandra Avila Beltran, also known as the "Queen of the Pacific," smiles for a police mug shot Sept. 28 in Mexico City.
Her success was likely aided by an influential family. She is the niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, “the godfather” of Mexican drug smuggling, who is serving a 40-year sentence in Mexico for drug smuggling and the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico’s western Jalisco state.

Another uncle, Juan Jose Quintero Payan, was extradited to the U.S. last January on drug-trafficking charges, Assistant Federal Public Safety Secretary Patricio Patino said.

The only other woman believed to be part of a cartel’s leadership is Avila Beltran’s distant relative Enedina Arellano Felix, who experts say took over the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel after one of her brothers was killed in a police shootout and her other brother was arrested.

Love affairs reportedly catapulted her into elite
Mexican media have said Avila Beltran had love affairs with other drug lords, as well, which helped catapult her into the elite of drug trafficking. Among the purported lovers were Ismael Zambada, a leader of the Sinaloa cartel, and alleged methamphetamine kingpin Ignacio Coronel.

She managed to stay behind the scenes until 2001. A few months after the cocaine seizure, her teenage son was kidnapped in Guadalajara and she contacted authorities for help. The size of the ransom demanded, which police said was $5 million, raised more suspicion among authorities.

Avila Beltran ended up saying she would handle the kidnapping negotiations herself. Patino said she paid $3 million for her son’s safe return. She says it was less.

At any rate, both U.S. and Mexican authorities took a closer look and began building a case against Avila Beltran. Officers tracked her to Mexico City, where she frequented a pricey Thai restaurant and had her hair colored jet black and hands manicured in ritzy beauty shops frequented by TV stars.

More than 30 federal agents arrested her Sept. 28 as she drank a cup of coffee at a diner, but she didn’t lose her poise. She charmed investigators into letting her apply makeup before police videotaped her transfer to a women’s jail.

In the footage, Avila Beltran, wearing spiked heels and skintight jeans, tosses her hair and smiles to the camera while walking downstairs on the arm of a federal agent. She then laughingly makes small talk with two female guards handcuffing her.
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Hours later, police also caught up with Espinoza Ramirez. He, too, smiles broadly in his mug shot.

Just a housewife, she says
In a videotape of Avila Beltran’s police interrogation, she describes herself as just a housewife who also earns some money by selling clothes and renting houses.

Asked why she is in police custody, she replies with a smirk, “because there is an arrest warrant asking for my extradition.”

The newspaper Milenio reports that “her diva attitude hasn’t changed since she went in” jail, but now “her only luxuries are soap and a blanket.”

Steve Roberts, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency, declined to discuss a U.S. extradition request that Mexican officials have confirmed, but he described Avila Beltran as “a significant drug trafficker.”

That shocked Santiago Martinez, a valet parker outside one of the beauty salons used by Avila Beltran. He remembers her as a friendly customer who always asked to have her white Ford Explorer washed.

“There were some customers that I thought could be up to no good, but she never looked suspicious,” Martinez said.

article taken from msnbc
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21139799/page/2/

[AnniKN]

Not so much as obsessed, there's thousands of songs on drug lords... it's a whole music genre hah. And the song is not about her, it's about a fictional character from a novel that was sort of based on her.

She's hot too... when she was being taken to prison she walked like she was on the red carpet:

[bausch]

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 11 — A woman who succeeds in a field dominated by men is always intriguing to the public, but when that field happens to be big-time cocaine trafficking, and the woman is graced with both charm and beauty, a criminal celebrity is born.
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Mexico’s Federal Secretary of Public Safety, via Associated Press

Ms. Ávila Beltrán, left, has a long list of romantic conquests, the police say, including the drug trafficker Ismael Zambada, right.

Ever since her arrest last month, Sandra Ávila Beltrán, better known as the Queen of the Pacific, has been getting the kind of press here that would have made Jesse James envious. Mexicans are closely following the case against her and the efforts to extradite her to United States, where she is wanted in Florida.

Prosecutors here say Ms. Ávila Beltrán, a shapely, raven-haired, 46-year-old with a taste for high fashion, has played an important role in forging a federation of drug traffickers in western Sinaloa State as well as creating an alliance between them and Colombian suppliers.

Along the way, she seduced many drug kingpins and upper-echelon police officers, becoming a powerful force in the cocaine world through a combination of ruthless business sense, a mobster’s wiles and her sex appeal, prosecutors say.

It is a measure of her importance in the Mexican underworld that some Tijuana musicians have written a song in her honor. This “narco-corrido” extols her virtues as “a top lady who is a key part of the business.” It has been played over and over on radio stations since her arrest.

The police say Ms. Ávila Beltrán was born into the trade. She is the niece of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, an important trafficker from Guadalajara serving a long sentence for smuggling and the murder of an American drug-enforcement agent, Enrique Camarena. Another uncle is Juan José Quintero Payán, who was extradited to the United States recently on drug smuggling charges. Her list of romantic conquests, the police say, include important members of the Sinaloa cartel like Ismael Zambada, known as El Mayo, and Ignacio Coronel, known as Nacho, investigators say. Both remain powerful leaders in the Sinaloa organization.

Her lovers have fared better than her legal husbands. She was at one time married to José Luis Fuentes, the commander of the federal police in Sinaloa, who was executed gangland style. Later she married Rodolfo López Amavizca, the commander of the National Institute for the Combat Against Drugs, which is now defunct. He was also murdered in 2000 by a gunman in a hotel in Hermosillo, the capital of northwestern Sonora State.

Of all her love affairs, however, it was her longtime union with a reputed Colombian trafficker, Juan Diego Espinosa, who calls himself the Tiger, that cemented her position in the upper echelons of the Mexican underworld.

Together, the two of them forged deals between Mexican and Colombian traffickers in the late 1990s and in 2000. She took control of shipping cocaine from the North Valley Cartel in Colombia to ports in western Mexico, thus earning her name the Queen of the Pacific.

At the same time, Ms. Ávila Beltrán established several legitimate businesses that investigators suspect were used to launder money — a string of tanning salons and a thriving real estate company with more than 200 properties in Sonora State.

But her luck began to run out in December 2001, when the authorities seized a tuna boat, the Macel, in the port of Manzanillo and found more than nine tons of cocaine aboard, worth $80 million.

Six months later, her teenage son was kidnapped in Guadalajara, and she slipped up. She contacted the authorities for help. She eventually asked the police to stay out of the way, handled the negotiations with the kidnappers herself and got her son back after 17 days.

But prosecutors say the $5 million ransom request raised their suspicions about her income. They started investigating her, and by July 2002 had found evidence linking her to the Macel shipment. They also linked her to other members of Mr. Espinosa’s family, among them a woman who was arrested at the Mexico City airport carrying about $1.5 million, prosecutors say.

Ms. Ávila Beltrán eluded arrest and went underground. She lived quietly in Mexico City with Mr. Espinosa in a middle-class neighborhood and went by the name Daniela García Chavez.

She did not drop her taste for luxury. She was fond of dining at Chez Wok, an expensive Thai restaurant in the Polanco neighborhood. She drove a BMW and frequented hair salons favored by television celebrities.

In March 2004, she was indicted on separate drug smuggling charges in Miami along with several members of the Espinosa family, according to court documents. But United States agents made no headway toward her arrest, even though she was living a high-profile lifestyle in Mexico City, court documents said.

Eventually, last year, a United States judge ordered arrest warrants for two other defendants be quashed in an effort to get them to cooperate and help to locate Ms. Ávila Beltrán. The judge pointed out that she had been a fugitive in Mexico for years.

On Sept. 28, more than 30 Mexican federal agents swarmed into a diner where she was having coffee and arrested her. She coolly asked the agents to let her freshen her makeup before the police filmed her transfer to jail. On the videotape, she tosses her hair and smiles for the camera, strutting in tight jeans and spiked heels, on the arm of an agent.

In a later tape of her being questioned by the police, she describes herself as a housewife who earns a little money on the side “selling clothes, houses.” Asked why she had been arrested, she responds with nonchalance: “Because of an extradition order to the United States.”

Though some local press reports said the federal case against her was weak, a judge last week ordered her arrested. She responded with her trademark insouciance at a hearing where charges related to the Macel shipment were recited for the record. “I already know them by heart,” she noted.

Her life behind bars at the Santa Martha Acatitla women’s prison in the capital has apparently not been to her liking. She filed a complaint with a Mexico City human rights commission, saying her cell had insects, which she referred to as “noxious fauna.” She also said the ban on bringing in food from restaurants violated her rights.

[bausch]

Originally Posted by AnniKN

Not so much as obsessed, there's thousands of songs on drug lords... it's a whole music genre hah. And the song is not about her, it's about a fictional character from a novel that was sort of based on her.

She's hot too... when she was being taken to prison she walked like she was on the red carpet:

I saw that video already. She is old now though and doesn't look that great but I guess she would be "hot" compared to Griselda Blanco or compared to the sleazy male drug lords.

I did hear she wore high heels when she was arrested and kept flipping her hair etc and charmed cops into letting her retouch her makeup before she was televised being arrested.

[bausch]

Originally Posted by sharphead

Whats so funny?

[klinton]

[D Ghost]

wow pretty interesting

[bausch]

No one else heard of this woman? I am fascinated with female drug lords now...

[bausch]

I like how she asked to put makeup on before she was televised being arrested and how she walked to jail like she was on the red carpet. It shows she is kinda crazy but I like that cause I'm crazy too...

[baddog]

Originally Posted by bausch

I like how she asked to put makeup on before she was televised being arrested and how she walked to jail like she was on the red carpet.

Yes, you mentioned that in 4/7 posts you made in this thread. I think most of us figured out that you like how she asked to put makeup on before she was televised being arrested and how she walked to jail like she was on the red carpet.

[Just Mike]

any pics?

[RyuLion]

sounds dangerous..

[tammix]

holy frijolie! ask a federale siñor...

[klinton]

Originally Posted by tammix

holy frijolie! ask a federale siñor...

[The Duck]

She asked to retouch her makeup then she walked like on the red carpet when they took her to jail. Or at least thats the word around town.

[bausch]

Originally Posted by kandah

She asked to retouch her makeup then she walked like on the red carpet when they took her to jail. Or at least thats the word around town.

That's what I read in the news articles too. I did see video footage of her walking but I don't think she was really walking like she would on the red carpet. Perhaps a little bit.