Beauty Queens Become Trophy Wives Of Drug Cartel Heads In Latin America Johanna Mendelson Forman - VOXXI
July 1, 2013

The moll of killed Colombian capo speaks out as a warning to other young women. CNN's Karl Penhaul reports. (CNN)

When we think of trophy wives we immediately see an image of a rich old white man with a beautiful young woman on his arm. Not so in Latin America.

Trophy wives take on a completely different meaning. In Mexico and Colombia, beauty queens are now the trophy wife of choice for the dons of the competing drug cartels. In some of the most violent regions of the Americas, beauty queens have become the ultimate prize for drug traffickers. The practice started in Colombia in the 1970s. Martha Lucia Echeverry, Miss Colombia 1974, was the mistress of Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, the head of the violent Cali cartel. Echeverry is considered the first known ‘narco woman.’

This tradition has continued in Colombia and more recently in Mexico, a major center for transshipment of cocaine to the United States and Europe. Maria Susana “Suzy” Flores, the 20-year-old Sinaloa, Mexico beauty queen who was brutally murdered last November in a gun battle, also succumbed to the siren call of money and luxury when she chose to date “El Cholo,” Orso Ivan Gastelum Avila, a feared hit man who worked for the Sinaloa cartel. In Suzy’s case, however, it was not money that drove her to this dangerous liaison. She came from a family with alleged ties to the drug business that had actually groomed her for a future as a beauty queen.

As evidenced by Suzy Flores, Sinaloa is not only a featured capital of the drug wars. It is also the breeding ground for Mexican beauty queens. The Miss Mexico title has been won seven times by the leggy femmes of that state. And as one Mexican academic, Nery Cordova, commented in a book on narco-culture in Sinaloa, “Do you want beauty queens who are not involved in the state’s dominant industry?”

For many others who come from more economically humble pedigrees than Flores, the lure of riches far outweighs the risks associated with hooking up with legendary narco-killers.

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