ALLEGED DRUG QUEEN ANGIE VALENCIA PICKED UP IN BUENOS AIRES

A former Colombian beauty queen accused of leading a drug-trafficking gang that used models as drug mules, smuggling cocaine to Mexico and Europe, has been arrested in Buenos Aires after evading local police for five months. In March 2010 Interpol issued an international warrant for her arrest.



Angie Sanselmente Valencia, 30, (born 25 May 1979)is a former Colombian beauty queen and lingerie model believed to be the ringleader of one of the world's largest drug syndicates. She won the popular title of Colombia's Reinado Internacional del Café (International Queen of Coffee) in 2000, but had become known as the 'Narco Queen' by the Argentine press. She was discovered on Wednesday, 26th of May, hiding out in the K-Lodges youth hostel in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. She was registered under the name 'Annie' and had dyed her brown hair blonde.

Sanselmente had been sought by Argentine police ever since December when a 21-year-old woman known only as 'Maria' was caught at Ezeiza International Airport, Buenos Aires, with 55 kilos of cocaine in her baggage boarding a flight from Buenos Aires to the Mexican resort of Cancun.

Angie Valencia had a successful lingerie modelling career, but now she is on the run, since at least 2 of her cocaine mules were arrested. She was noted to have been payng young women up to $5,000 for their runs from Argentina to Cancun, Mexico where the cocaine would make its way to Europe.

Another such young beauty was 25-year-old identified as Ariel L. who was also a glamour model and in the advertising industry. Both Ariel and Mary were convinced by Angie Valencia that the cocaine would not be detected by authorities. Both beauties were under the impression that key security personnel were in on the activity.

The woman's arrest led to six other alleged gang members being picked up, who apparently fingered Sanselmente as their ringleader.

During her period in hiding, Sanselmente declared her innocence on Facebook ;"I'm very sad and hurt by the bad information. I don't know how the press can destroy an innocent person," she wrote. "I don't want to go to jail. I don't deserve it. I am innocent."

Her mother, Jeannette Valencia, flew in from Colombia some weeks ago to protest her innocence too. "She is no drug trafficker, nor is she the queen of cocaine," she said. "There are bad intentions - a plot against her."
Sanselmente's lawyer, Guillermo Tiscornia, said the former lingerie model and beauty queen had not turned herself in because she feared her looks would expose her to rape or other mistreatment in an Argentine prison. "They will rape her... they will cut her face," her mother said.

Sanselmente comes from the Colombian city of Barranquilla. She won Colombia's Coffee Queen beauty pageant in 2000 but had to give up her crown after only two days when it turned out she was married, which was against the rules. That marriage to a Barranquilla, Colombia, businessman lasted three months in 1998.

A report last month by the New Criminologist said Sanselmente had set out to be a journalist. But she idolised the well-known Colombian model Natalia Paris and dropped out of college, spending her tuition fees on silicone breast implants instead. She dyed her hair blonde and even imitated Paris's distinctive accent in an effort to appear more like her.

As result, she picked up some modelling and TV acting work in Colombia and Mexico - and, if her accusers are to be believed, became involved in the drugs trade.

"More women are now head of drug-trafficking cartels after their husband or close relative, who were drug bosses, wound up dead or serving long sentences in prison," the New Criminologist quoted a drugs expert as saying. "These women gradually earned the respect of drug traffickers after showing shrewd attitudes for financial management and money laundering."

New Criminologist reporter Clarence Walker posted a list of the top ten Latin American women drug dealers. Sanselmente, then still in hiding, was number two after the notorious Griselda Blanco, known as Miami's 'black widow' and thought to be responsible for at least 200 murders.

>>AS POSTED ON INTERPOL WANTED LIST

Wanted

SANCLEMENTE VALENCIA, Angie


Legal Status

Present family name: SANCLEMENTE VALENCIA
Forename:ANGIE
Sex: FEMALE
Date of birth: 25 May 1979 (31 years old)
Place of birth: Colombia
Language spoken: Spanish Castilian
Nationality: Colombia


Physical description

Height: 1.60 meter <-> 63 inches


Offences

Categories of Offences: DRUGS RELATED CRIMES
Arrest Warrant Issued by: CAUS JUD 11876 DEL JUZ NAC PEN ECON N?6 DE BS AS / Argentina.

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