Inside Mexican Beauty Contest Where Drug Lords Like El Chapo Pick Brides & Queens Are Kidnapped, Murdered & Shot by Cops

2/10/22, 6:06 PM Inside Mexican beauty contest where drug lords like El Chapo pick brides & queens
mp; queens are kidnapped, murdered & shot by cops
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BEAUTY AND THE BEASTS Inside Mexican

beauty contest where drug lords like El
Chapo pick brides & queens are
kidnapped, murdered & shot by cops
Alison Maloney
15:00, 30 Nov 2021 Updated: 21:37, 30 Nov 2021
FLASHING a smile as she was crowned Miss Sinaloa

2012, Maria Susana Flores told the audience: “You
cannot change your past. But you can choose today
what your future will be.” Atlas
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Nine months later, she died in a hail of bullets from

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https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14170860/el-chapo-wife-emma-coronel-mexican-beauty-pageant/ 1/17
2/10/22, 6:06 PM
, Inside Mexican beauty contest where drug lords like El Chapo pick brides & queens are kidnapped, murdered & shot by cops
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Y Mexican soldiers after getting
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drugs war.
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5
Maria Susana Flores was shot dead by Mexican soldiers in a
gun battle Credit: AP:Associated Press
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2/10/22, 6:06 PM Inside Mexican beauty contest where drug lords like El Chapo pick brides & queens are kidnapped, murdered & shot by cops
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Emma Coronel Aispuro won the title at 17 Credit: EuroPics - CEN
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She became El Chapo's fourth wife after he proposed at the
event Credit: Reuters
Maria - known as Susy - is just one of the many winners

of the Mexican beauty contestBigwhose
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coveted
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in smart
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has led them into a life of drugs, packages
digital
guns, and
murder.
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Miss Sinaloa pageant has produced a record seven Miss
Mexicos.
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But it's also notorious as a hunting ground for drug

lords in search of a wife.
The region's most powerful lord, El Chapo, even chose

the pageant to propose to his wife Emma Coronel
Aispuro, flanked by 100 gunmen, after she won the
crown at 17.
This week, Emma, 31, was sentenced to three years in

prison on drug trafficking charges and for trying to
help her husband escape jail, after flaunting her
glamorous life of huge houses and designer clothes
online.
It’s a lifestyle that draws the Mexican beauties to the

powerful cartel bosses like moths to a flame.
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"A lot of young women are attracted by the false riches

of the drug gangs,” Judith del Rincon, a women's rights
activist, and former Sinaloa legislator, told the
Associated Press.
“They offer the fantasy of a life of riches without much

work. A lot of beauty queens wind up as girlfriends of
some narco."
Many of the girls are keen to kickstart a modelling

career and their agencies are in the pockets of the
local narco kings, arranging dates and giving out
addresses so they can shower a potential queen with
gifts of diamond rings, necklaces and cars.
But the romances can be a fatal attraction - and the

contest's dark history stretches back to the 1950s, with
numerous winners kidnapped, murdered and arrested.
HUMAN SHIELD IN DEADLY GUN BATTLE

Maria Susana Flores was just four when she won her
first pageant, organised by her mother.
But she grew up in a life marred by violence - her

farmer dad was killed by gunmen who opened fire on
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stepping stone to the Miss Sinaloa title - at the age of
20, Susy attended pageants as far away as China.
But she was secretly dating one ofa dealer

Find El Chapo's top
lieutenants Orso Ivan Gastelum, known as "El Cholo
Ivan" - a ruthless hitman whose violence was legendary
among the Sinaloa cartel.
In November of the same year, Mexican soldiers were

called to the village of Caitime, where El Cholo’s men
had set up an illegal checkpoint, stopping members of
the public and searching their cars, as part of a
territorial war with a rival drug gang.
A gun battle broke out between soldiers and gang

members, who attempted to flee in two pickup trucks.
When they closed in on one truck, Susy - dressed in a

yellow blouse and leggings - jumped out, holding an
AK-47 automatic rifle, and screamed “Don’t shoot!”.
But they did.
She was shot in the neck and collarbone and died at

the scene. Four men were arrested but El Cholo
escaped.
Local police claimed Susy had been forced out of the

truck as a human shield.
Susy was buried with her father in a mausoleum that

her mother decorated with glass and marble, adding a
red suede throne "for the queen."
TEEN BRIDE OF BILLIONAIRE KINGPIN

When El Chapo - real name Javier Guzman - wanted a
young beauty to become his fourth wife, he was
determined she would win the Miss Sinaloa title first.
Emma Coronel Aispura was the daughter of one of his

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To celebrate the win, the 51-year-old drug boss - whose
£10billion drug empire holds the grip of power on the
whole of Sinaloa - marched into the ceremony with
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100 men, weilding AK-47s, and announced he would
marry her.
They wed on Emma’s 18th birthday in 2007, while he
was on the run from the police, and went on to have
twin girls, now 10.
She proved a loyal wife, standing by him through his

2016 arrest and turning up every day for his trial in the
US, which eventually saw him jailed for life plus 30
years in US' most secure prison, ADX Florence in
Colorado.
Emma’s reward was a life of luxury, with expensive

houses and designer clothes and bags which she
constantly flaunted on Instagram
But the price of her loyalty came earlier this year, when
she was charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin,
cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.
She was also accused of conspiring with others to help

her husband escape from prison in Mexico in 2015,
when he fled through a tunnel on a specially adapted
motorbike.
STRIPPED OF TITLE AFTER CARTEL

ARREST
Laura Zuniga was named Miss Mexico International
after winning the 2008 Miss Sinaloa crown.
But two months later, in December 2008, she was

arrested by Mexican police along with her boyfriend,
Ángel Orlando García Urquiza, and six other men.
Soldiers searching their car found £38,000 in cash, two

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The 23-year-old initially claimed she and Urquiza - a
high-ranking member of the Juarez cartel - were on
their way to a shopping trip to Bolivia.
But in a radio interview she claimed she had been

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kidnapped by her boyfriend and had not been aware
of his criminal activities.
On Christmas Day, the pageant organisers stripped her

of all her titles.
She was sentenced to 40 days under arrest but was

released on January 30, 2009 after being cleared by a
judge.
The 2011 film Miss Bala - meaning Miss Bullet - was

based on her story.
KIDNAPPED AND FORCD TO MARRY

When Carmen Lizarrago was crowned Carnival Queen
in the Sinaloa town of Mazatlan in 1990, she caught the
eye of Francisco Rafael Félix - founder of the Tijuana
Cartel.
After finding she was engaged to another man Félix, a

rival to El Chapo, kidnapped the 18-year-old, took her
to the neighbouring state and forced her to marry
him.
Months later a chilling statement, claiming to be from

Carmen, was published in a Mexican newspaper,
claiming she has accepted her fate.
It read: "It would be embarrassing to have to say

whether I left of my own will or was taken by force.
“I do not want to judge or point out the man who will

be the father of my children, the one who gave me his
last name and from whom I have only received
attention, because I have never received bad
treatment from him. Big things
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continue.”
Three years into the marriage the couple went on the

run and in 1993, Félix was arrested and jailed for 15
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years.
Carmen was thought to have stuck by his side and was
with him in 2013, when he was shot dead by hitmen
dressed as clowns at a family celebration.
MURDERED BY THE MOB

The link between the Miss Sinaloa crown and drug
traffickers goes back as far as 1958, when the nephew
of Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana wed 1958 winner
Kenya Kemmermand Bastidas.
The daughter of a poor grocer, Kenya moved to Sicily

with her husband, Vittorio Giancana.
But after three years, she was shot dead in her ocean-
front home - apparently murdered by Mafia members
unhappy at the fact that Vittoria had married a
Mexican. She left behind an 11-month-old daughter.
Kenya was thought to have been the first Miss Sinaloa

to marry into a crime family but she was certainly not
the last.
Ana Victoria Santanares, crowned in 1967, was just 18

when she married cartel boss Ernesto Carillo Fonseca,
then 37.
She fled the country with their two children after four
years, moving to Colombia and remarrying.
Carillo - known as Don Neto - was convicted of

participating in the torture and murder of DEA agent
Enrique Camerena in 1985 and jailed for 40 years.
The deadly alliance between beauty queens and rich,

powerful criminals stretchesAtlas
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minute, anytime, anywhere,” says Javier Valdez
Cárdenas, author of the 2010 book Miss Narco.
“But that’s the only way to mobilise in this society.

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There’s no employment here. That’s the only option

they see.”
5
Emma Coronel Aispuro was helped to win by her future
husband Credit: EuroPics - CEN
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The Mexican beauty was later arrested and stripped of her
crown Credit: AP:Associated Press
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0:00
Wife of Mexico drug cartel chief El Chapo is arrested in

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2/10/22, 6:06 PM Inside Mexican beauty contest where drug lords like El Chapo pick brides & queens

mp; queens are kidnapped, murdered & shot by cops

Y HEALTH DEAR DEIDRE TECH TRAVEL MOTORS PUZZLES SUNSign

BEAUTY AND THE BEASTS Inside Mexican

FLASHING a smile as she was crowned Miss Sinaloa

Nine months later, she died in a hail of bullets from

Maria - known as Susy - is just one of the many winners

But it's also notorious as a hunting ground for drug

The region's most powerful lord, El Chapo, even chose

This week, Emma, 31, was sentenced to three years in

It’s a lifestyle that draws the Mexican beauties to the

MOST READ IN THE SUN

PREM STAR'S CAT ATTACK West Ham's Kurt

'DEVASTATED' I cried when docs said I was

HEIR THIS Meghan’s job title on Archie’s birth

"A lot of young women are attracted by the false riches

“They offer the fantasy of a life of riches without much

Many of the girls are keen to kickstart a modelling

But the romances can be a fatal attraction - and the

HUMAN SHIELD IN DEADLY GUN BATTLE

But she grew up in a life marred by violence - her

But she was secretly dating one ofa dealer

In November of the same year, Mexican soldiers were

A gun battle broke out between soldiers and gang

When they closed in on one truck, Susy - dressed in a

She was shot in the neck and collarbone and died at

Local police claimed Susy had been forced out of the

Susy was buried with her father in a mausoleum that

TEEN BRIDE OF BILLIONAIRE KINGPIN

Emma Coronel Aispura was the daughter of one of his

loyal henchmen and, after meeting her at a dance and

her favour. cockpit pro

She proved a loyal wife, standing by him through his

Emma’s reward was a life of luxury, with expensive

She was also accused of conspiring with others to help

STRIPPED OF TITLE AFTER CARTEL

But two months later, in December 2008, she was

Soldiers searching their car found £38,000 in cash, two

But in a radio interview she claimed she had been

of his criminal activities.

On Christmas Day, the pageant organisers stripped her

She was sentenced to 40 days under arrest but was

The 2011 film Miss Bala - meaning Miss Bullet - was

KIDNAPPED AND FORCD TO MARRY

After finding she was engaged to another man Félix, a

Months later a chilling statement, claiming to be from

It read: "It would be embarrassing to have to say

“I do not want to judge or point out the man who will

“I accept with resignation the cockpit

Three years into the marriage the couple went on the

MURDERED BY THE MOB

The daughter of a poor grocer, Kenya moved to Sicily

Kenya was thought to have been the first Miss Sinaloa

Ana Victoria Santanares, crowned in 1967, was just 18

Carillo - known as Don Neto - was convicted of

The deadly alliance between beauty queens and rich,

“But that’s the only way to mobilise in this society.

There’s no employment here. That’s the only option

Wife of Mexico drug cartel chief El Chapo is arrested in

Topics Features News Features

YOU MIGHT LIKE

EC-Council MasterClass CEH Program.

LOVE HURTS I was desperate DEADLY DELAY I would’ve

OH BABY I'm a mum-of-four SKIN DEEP The best anti-

Inside Mexican Beauty Contest Where Drug Lords Like El Chapo Pick Brides & Queens Are Kidnapped, Murdered & Shot by Cops

Inside Mexican Beauty Contest Where Drug Lords Like El Chapo Pick Brides & Queens Are Kidnapped, Murdered & Shot by Cops