Mexican politicians were yesterday calling for an investigation into ties between the nation's popular beauty pageants and leading drug cartels, after the reigning Miss Sinaloa, Laura Zúñiga Huizar, was arrested last week travelling near Guadalajara in the company of a top trafficker and an arsenal of weaponry.
Zúñiga, a 23-year-old former kindergarten teacher, was detained with boyfriend Ángel Orlando García Urquiza, a key player in the Juárez cartel, and six bodyguards, when their convoy was stopped at a military checkpoint last Monday. Mexican authorities were astonished to find the beauty queen with traffickers on their way to Bolivia, armed with assault rifles, pistols and ammunition clips, 16 cell phones and about $53,000 (£36,345) in cash.
It is now feared that Zúñiga's arrest is confirmation that even "clean" elements of Mexican society are no longer beyond the reach of the drug cartels.
In their course of business, it is believed that the drug lords may have "adopted" performers, including beauty queens. Officials from Sinaloa, a northern state of Mexico, say pageant organisers may have fast-tracked Zúñiga to victory in July when she was crowned Miss Sinaloa after coming third in the Miss Mexico contest. "It is very sad. What we are seeing is a loss of values among young people," noted Juan Francisco Rivera, who heads the congressional public safety committee.
Under Mexican law Zúñiga can be held for 40 days while police decide whether to charge her. Pageant organisers say they may strip her of her title if it is shown that her win was connected to her relationship with García. Nuestra Belleza Mexico, the pageant's ruling body, has released a statement saying it knew nothing about "any illicit activity in which she could be involved". According to authorities, there is little mystery about the connection: traffickers like to accessorise their wealth with attractive women, and none are so highly valued as beauty queens.
For García, though, his arrest signals both the resolve of the Mexican government to curb the war between drug cartels and the relative decline of the Juárez cartel that once dominated the illicit border trade between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso on the US side.
Ten years ago, under the control of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as "Lord of the Skies", the Juárez cartel was the most powerful in the country. But Carrillo died in 1997 after botched plastic surgery and control of the gang fell to his brother, Vicente. That arrangement collapsed in 2004. Vicente went into hiding, and leadership was taken over by García's brother, Ricardo. Before Ricardo was arrested three years ago, the cartel was still estimated to control 20% of Mexican narcotics sold on US street and earn as much as $1bn a month. But without strong leadership the Juárez cartel is now a shadow of its former self.
After being arrested, Zúñiga told police she and her boyfriend were planning to go shopping in Bolivia and Colombia. But Zúñiga had told her father she was going to a Christmas party in Guadalajara.
Jesús Estebán Zúñiga said he was not willing to accept that his daughter had fallen in with drug traffickers. "She's a good daughter," he said. "She's always focused on her work and she's had a spotless reputation ... until now."