Although Sandra Avila Beltran, dubbed the "Queen of the Pacific" for being the lead female amongst the heavily-male dominated field of drug trafficking in Mexico, has been able to avoid previous convictions, she had recently been extradited to the U.S. to face charges of drug-trafficking and criminal conspiracy, as reported by Fox News and several other news sites.
Mexican authorities extradited Avila Beltran on August 9 to the U.S. Marshals Service. It has taken two years, according to the federal Attorney General's Office, to have her in U.S. custody as first she had to exhaust the appeals process.
Avila Beltran will be tried in Miami federal court along with Juan Carlos Lopez Correa and Juan Diego Espinosa. The three are tied together as part of a network that allegedly trafficked cocaine, and other drugs, to the U.S. from Columbia.
Avila Beltran, according to the Attorney General's Office, is indicted for coordinating, storing and moving large amounts of cocaine from different sections of the hemisphere through to Mexico. From Mexico, Avila Beltran, then moved her cache into the U.S.
She has been in custody beginning in September of 2007. By the end of 2010, both she and Espinosa – who had been extradited it the U.S. in December of 2008 – had been acquitted of smuggling charges that involved moving many tons of cocaine into Mexico.
In 2010 an appeals court found that there was insufficient evidence against Avila Beltran to support allegations of organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering.
A Mexican federal court ruled in June 2012 that Avila Beltran could be extradited into the U.S. The court had overturned a previous ruling, stating that Avila Beltran had already been acquitted of the charges in Mexico and the U.S. couldn't try her on the same charges.
The new ruling allowed the handover to U.S. soil.
A federal tribunal found that only one of the two charges made against Avila Beltran was related to her Mexican prosecution. The separate charge, dating back to 2001, is for Avila Beltran allegedly moving 100 kilos of cocaine into Chicago.
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, also know as "El Padrino", or The Godfather, is Avila Beltran's uncle. Gallardo is currently serving a lengthy prison term in Mexico. Also in her lineage is Juan Jose Quintero Payan, her granduncle and co-founder of the Juarez cartel. Payan is also serving prison time for drug trafficking; he was sentenced to 18 years in a U.S. jail.
Avila Beltran is rumored to be an important agent between cocaine producers in Colombia and the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
In Mexico the media see a likeness between Avila Beltran's life and that of a fictional character in the novel, "La Reina del Sur". The title translates as, "The Queen of the South."
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