Cocaine might not be the only Andean import that interests Mexican drug lords these days. As cartel leaders get caught, we are finding out who is keeping them company, and most of the girlfriends were “imported” from South American nations with a love for jewelry, a posh life and massive wads of cash. These naughty narco novias are starting to make headlines for themselves not just for their beauty but for their bold venture into narco trafficking.
Take the case of Juliana Sossa, who got arrested last week alongside one of the most dangerous men in México, ‘El JJ’, accused of heinous crimes, including the shooting of Paraguayan soccer player Salvador Cabañas.
Sossa was the winner in a 2008 Colombian Beauty Pageant, she then left the country and lead a life of glamour and luxury because her criminal boyfriend paid for it.
“I like modeling and I’ve participated in contests like Miss Antioquia 2008 and others that are less well known,” Sossa wrote on her Facebook page, adding that she speaks Spanish, English and Italian.
Police said that a different comment on her Facebook indicating where she was living in the Bosques de Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City was instrumental in capturing cartel leader Jorge Balderas Garza aka “El JJ.”
Another naughty narco novia is Juliana López Aguirre whom police arrested last November. She is also Colombian, along with narco-boyfriend Harold Mauricio Poveda, aka “El Conejo, ” a key player in the cocaine operations between the Mexican Beltrán Leyva cartel, and South America. López had a brush with the law a couple of years earlier, where the cops invaded her birthday celebration at her home. News said she had pet black panthers, and described the lush home as a narco-mansion.
Another Colombian model, Angie Sanclemente, who was the Colombian Coffee Queen in 2000, was arrested in Argentina last May. Prosecutors said she was married to Mexican drug lord “El Monstruo,” and had relocated to Argentina to scout for and manage a fleet of young women moving cocaine to Europe via Mexico.
Mexican narcos don’t tend to discriminate when seeking out their naughty narco novias and have also turned their eyes to homegrown beauty queens, like Laura Elena Zuniga, crowned Miss Sinaloa 2008, and in the same year, Miss Hispanic America in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. She was arrested after winning her title, though she had stated she had no clue her boyfriend was a leader of the Juarez Cartel. A judge believed her and set her free in 2009.
