Sandra Ávila Beltrán

Biography

Ávila Beltrán was born in Baja California, Mexico, the daughter of María Luisa Beltrán Félix and Alfonso Ávila Quintero, a family member of Rafael Caro Quintero, the former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel. Family connections have played a major role in her criminal career, and Ávila Beltrán was in fact a "third-generation" drug trafficker in her family. Officials in Mexico say Ávila Beltrán is the niece of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the onetime godfather of the Mexican drug trade who is serving a 40-year sentence for the 1984 murder of Enrique Camarena, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent. Her great uncle Juan José Quintero Payán was extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges. On her mother's side, the Beltráns got involved in heroin smuggling in the 1970s and later diversified into cocaine. DEA officials state that Ávila Beltrán never shrank from employing the violence that comes with the turf and that "she used the typical intimidation tactics of Mexican organizations."

She reportedly had affairs with several well-known drug barons in her youth. She was married twice; both of her husbands were ex-police commanders who became drug traffickers, and both of them were later killed by hired assassins. The police attribute her rise to power in the drug world primarily to her most recent relationship with Juan Diego Espinoza Ramírez, alias The Tiger, who is said to be an important figure in the Colombian Norte del Valle Cartel. Ávila Beltrán lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Hermosillo, Sonora, until the police found more than 9 tons of cocaine on a ship in the Pacific port of Manzanillo, Colima, in 2001 and tracked the shipment to her and her lover Espinoza Ramírez.

Arrest

Despite her high-profile lifestyle, Beltrán long avoided leaving police any evidence. In 2002, however, she unexpectedly contacted authorities for help when her teenage son was kidnapped for a $5 million USD ransom. She eventually got her son back, but not without raising suspicions that launched an investigation. It took more than four years and 30 federal agents to close in and finally arrest Ávila. She was arrested, along with Espinoza Ramírez, on 28 September 2007, in Mexico City. She was charged with and convicted of laundering money for billions of dollars worth of drugs smuggled from Colombia to Mexico.

In a tape of her police interrogation, she describes herself as a housewife who earns a little money on the side "selling clothes and renting houses." When asked why she had been arrested, she responded, "Because of an extradition order to the United States." Her life behind bars at the Santa Martha Acatitla women’s prison in Mexico City has apparently not been to her liking as she filed a complaint with a Mexico City human rights commission, saying her cell had insects, which she referred to as noxious fauna. She also said the ban on bringing in food from restaurants violated her human rights.

In March 2009, journalist Anderson Cooper interviewed Sandra Ávila for the television news magazine 60 Minutes.

In January 2011 an investigation was launched after a doctor was allowed to enter the prison to give Beltrán a Botox injection treatment, a therapy that is not authorised for inmates. The prison's director and hospital chief were relieved of their duties. Although all of the drug charges were dropped in early 2011, she remains in jail for possession of illegal weapons, and is undergoing extradition proceedings to the United States for drug trafficking.

Extradition and deportation

In June 2012 several Mexican judges ruled out major obstacles to extradite Ávila Beltrán to the United States on cocaine trafficking charges that date back to 2001. Originally, previous request seeking to extradite Ávila Beltrán had been denied twice by a panel and then by a judge, but Ávila Beltrán had to answer to the charges by the United States for several cocaine shipments seized in Chicago. On 10 August 2012, Ávila Beltrán was extradited to the United States and flown to Florida to face cocaine possession and trafficking charges. Ávila denied the charges and as part of the plea deal, Avila said she provided "financial assistance for travel, lodging and other expenses" to Espinosa from 2002 to 2004.

Ávila Beltrán was then deported back to Mexico, where she was immediately arrested on money-laundering charges on 20 August 2013, and was sentenced to five more years in prison and a fine for money laundering. She was imprisoned at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 4 federal prison in Tepic, Nayarit. She was released in 2015 and now lives in the city of Guadalajara. Since her arrest in 2007, she spent a total of seven years in prison, including two years in isolation.

Popularity

Los Tucanes de Tijuana wrote a folk ballad that pays homage to Sandra Ávila as "a top lady who is a key part of the business." She also published a book, The Queen of the Pacific: Time to Talk, based on a series of prison interviews she gave to Mexican journalist Julio Scherer.