Glenis Zapata, who was a Latina beauty queen in Indiana, United States, in 2011, was arrested in a raid by the Mexican cartel DTO Espinoza.
The Fox news portal reported that Zapata, 34, She allegedly used her job as a flight attendant to move drug money from Chicago to the southern states of the United States and across to Mexico, according to a federal indictment.
The former queen is accused of two counts of money laundering stemming from the transportation of $170,000 in cash in August 2019, and at least $140,000 in September 2019.
Zapata was one of 18 suspicious people who were arrested when federal forces detained their main target, Oswaldo Espinosa, who was among the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) most wanted fugitives.
Espinosa is the alleged leader of a Mexico-based drug trafficking ring that flooded U.S. streets with thousands of kilograms of cocaine, according to the latest federal indictment filed May 16.
From 2018 to 2023, Espinosa recruited seemingly ordinary workers, like Zapata, as part of his alleged criminal enterprise, which used warehouses and garages throughout Chicago to hide money and drugs.
The cash and cocaine were loaded onto semi-trailer trucks and airplanes from storage houses in the Midwest to the southern United States and into Mexico, “including commercial flights with the assistance of Glenis Zapata,” according to the indictment.
Espinosa was the head of his own Mexican international drug trafficking organization (DTO) called the DTO Espinosa, according to court documents.
The investigation into Espinosa was led by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which was created to target major drug networks in the US.
The DTO Espinosa is a small cartel compared to giants such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel, which control almost all of Mexico and its seaports and extend their tentacles throughout the United States.
