Laura Zuniga is suspected of having ties to a drug cartel.
Related: Mexico's Osama
"Mexican beauty queen to stay in jail
MEXICO CITY - A Mexican beauty queen arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking was ordered jailed for another 40 days yesterday while investigators look into suspected ties to violent smuggling gangs.
Laura Zuniga, the current Miss Sinaloa, was arrested at a military checkpoint Monday along with seven heavily armed men. A judge yesterday ordered her to stay behind bars during the investigation, the attorney general's office said. One of the men arrested with Zuniga, 23, is linked to the leadership of the Juarez drug cartel, which operates lucrative smuggling routes into the United States, investigators said.
Zuniga, who won the Miss Sinaloa title in July and was to compete in the Miss International 2009 pageant next year in Asia, was dating the man, Angel Orlando Garcia, who is alleged to be one of the leaders of the cartel, police said. The dark-haired model was named "Queen of Hispanic America 2008" in a contest in Bolivia. Soldiers found two assault rifles and more than $55,000 in cash in the vehicles in which Zuniga and the men were traveling, investigators said.
Zuniga is the latest well-known figure to be linked to drug traffickers this year in Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon is using soldiers and federal police to battle the drug rings. Top antidrug officials have been accused of passing intelligence to kingpins, and police arrested seven soccer players and soccer club directors in October. Prosecutors suspect the team is being financed by a drug gang for money-laundering purposes.
--more--"Seeing as government is playing both sides of the issue, I find the MSM's presentation of the "drug war" most disingenuous and distasteful.
