Mexico: where drug ‘kings’ turn out to be queens

With Barack Obama in Mexico for talks with president Felipe Calderon this week, the war on drugs is the first item on the agenda. Obama has announced strict measures which would allow the US to confiscate the assets of narcotics trade kingpins. What the authorities are increasingly realising though, is that many of the narcotraficantes who carry out leading roles with the major cartels are women.

Increasingly, Mexico’s drug queens are taking advantage of the lack of suspicion that they arouse. As Constantino Diaz Duran writes in the Daily Beast, “in a culture known for its machismo, women command a startling degree of authority over the Mexican drug mafia. They run its finances, major smuggling operations, even run entire cartels.”

In a culture known for machismo, women command a startling degree of authority

Much of this is down to the power that mother figures hold in Mexican households, and the roles that they assume in charge of the family finances. As Diaz Duran writes, “Contrary to stereotypes in America, it is Mexican men who are seen as wasteful shoppers, splurging on mansions, fancy cars, and—the latest trend—exotic animals.” So, in many cases, the women are entrusted with keeping tabs on drug cartel accounts.

For a long time, the biggest name amongst the drug queens was Sandra Avila Beltran (pictured above, left). Until she was pulled over in her black BMW in September 2007, sent to a bedbug-ridden prison and threatened with extradition to the US, Beltran had all the trappings of narco wealth. She had power, a nickname – the Queen of the Pacific – and a reservation whenever she wanted at Mexico City’s best restaurants.

Sycophantic folk-ballads describe the beautiful Beltran, AK47 over her shoulder

Sycophantic folk ballads were written recounting Beltran’s beauty, and how she’d step out of a helicopter with an AK47 slung over her shoulder, wearing camo paint instead of make-up. Arturo Perez Reverte, a celebrated Spanish author, has written a book about her, which is being adapted into a movie starring Eva Mendes, Josh Hartnett and Ben Kingsley.

Now, there are others in her wake. Enedina Arellano Felix, whose brothers had a hand in much of the traffic heading north in the 1990s, has established operations of her own in Northern Mexico and California. And ‘the Empress’, Blanca Cazares Salazar, who deals with finances for the infamous Joaquin ‘Shorty’ Guzman, has been on the run since a US Treasury report accused her of money laundering in 2007.

As Diaz Duran explains, “The laundering operations run by these women don’t take place in your typical smoke-filled billiard rooms and dive bars. They manage boutiques, hotels, and beauty parlors, many of which are profitable fronts for their even more profitable illegal activities.”