Har angiveligt spillet en hovedrolle i at opbygge et stort narkokartel i 1990erne og arbejdet sammen med nogle af de mest eftersøgte narkobaroner i Mexico, hvor volden mellem kartellerne ofte ender i bestialske drab og ofre, der forsvinder i syretønder.
Mexico has extradited (udleveret) to the United States a woman accused of setting up some of the first drug smuggling routes up the Pacific coast into California, BBC online reports Friday.
Sandra Avila Beltran, dubbed Queen of the Pacific, has been handed over to the American authorities to face cocaine trafficking charges.
Mexican prosecutors accuse her of having played a major part in the build up of the Sinaloa Cartel in the 1990s. Sandra Avila, who has been in prison for years, denies any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors say she worked alongside Mexico’s most wanted man, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, to build up one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organisations.
She was accused of being an important link between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Norte del Valle Cartel, in Colombia. Much of the cocaine produced in Colombia is smuggled into the United States via Mexico.
Sandra Avila Beltran is the niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, known in the 1980s as “The Godfather” of drug trafficking into the US.
Ms Avila was arrested in September 2007 in Mexico City, charged with money laundering and drug trafficking.
