Underworld Queenpin

By the time of the López Amavizca murder Avila Beltrán had long since moved on to Espinoza Ramírez, nicknamed El Tigre (the tiger), but her alleged involvement in the drug trade did not immediately become known to U.S. and Mexican officials. Vigil says that Avila Beltrán first appeared on the DEA's radar in the late 1990s via informants who implicated her directly in smuggling activity. The December 2001 seizure of the multiton consignment of cocaine aboard the vessel Macel in the Mexican Pacific port of Manzanillo bolstered the evidence against her, because cell phone records found on the boat subsequently tied the cargo to Avila Beltrán and Espinoza Ramírez, who was also arrested in Mexico City on the night of her capture two weeks ago. In 2002 Avila Beltrán's teenage son by Fuentes was kidnapped in the city of Guadalajara, and the $5 million ransom demanded by the boy's captors raised the eyebrows of police officials assigned to the case when she reported the abduction. In the event, Avila Beltrán personally took charge of the negotiations with her son's kidnappers and procured his release in exchange for a payment of $3 million, says Patiño.

Mexican lawmen then took a much closer look at her finances and business activities. In October 2002 the federal attorney general's office issued a bulletin accusing Avila Beltrán of having laundered money of Colombian origin through the purchase of 225 real-estate lots, two houses and a tanning salon in the city of Hermosillo. The break in the case came three months earlier with the arrest of two Colombian women at Mexico City's international airport in July of that year who were found to be carrying over $2 million in cash. That led authorities to Avila Beltrán's beau Espinoza Ramírez, because one of the detained couriers was married at the time to a half-brother of El Tigre. Evidence and information obtained from the two women helped uncover Avila Beltrán's extensive money-laundering operation in Hermosillo.

The "Queen of the Pacific" was transferred to a federal prison on the northern outskirts of Mexico City last week, where she will await the outcome of proceedings to extradite her to the U.S. But even if Sandra Avila Beltrán disappears from view for a while, she isn't going to vanish from the imaginations of her countrymen. She has her very own narcocorrido folk song by a band called Los Tucanes de Tijuana (The Toucans of Tijuana) whose lyrics pay tribute to "a very powerful lady" who "is a big player in the business." A video of the song features the Mexican model Fabiola Campomanes in the Queen of the Pacific role.

Avila Beltrán's vanity and gastronomic habits helped Mexican officials track her down in the Mexican capital. She often dined at the Cantonese restaurant Chez Wok in the tony district of Polanco and had her hair styled at two upscale beauty salons on a street seven blocks from the eatery. If her recent appearances in public are anything to go by, imprisonment won't strip her of her highly developed sense of style. In televised footage of her arraignment for transfer to the maximum-security penitentiary last week, she is shown wearing spike heels and skintight jeans, tossing her hair occasionally as she smiles at the camera. At one point during the proceedings she reportedly told the judge, "I like to be called 'the Queen of the Pacific'." And as she was taken away at the conclusion of the hearing, Avila Beltrán turned to the clerk of the court and cooed, "Have a lovely afternoon."

With Mac Margolis in Rio de Janeiro

© 2007