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Colombia Beauty Queen arrested for drugs plot

29 May 2010 [11:56] - TODAY.AZ
A Colombian model accused of employing pretty young women to smuggle drugs to Mexico and Europe has been arrested in Buenos Aires.
Angie Sanclemente Valencia, a former beauty queen, is being held on international drug trafficking charges after her dramatic arrest at a youth hostel in the Argentinian capital on Wednesday.

Dubbed the "Narco Queen" by the Argentinian press, Sanclemente had been on the run since December, when a model smuggler involved in the operation was arrested after boarding a flight to Cancun with 55 kilograms of cocaine in her luggage.

Six other alleged gang members were then arrested and all accused the 30-year-old beauty queen of running the drugs ring. But officials maintain Sanclemente's role within the organisation has not yet been determined.

"When they organised the trafficking of cocaine to Mexico, she participated in the meetings," a source said.

Judicial officials have rejected a plea by her lawyer Guillermo Tiscornia, who claims she did not turn herself in as she was "afraid of being raped" in prison. Police were able to identify Sanclemente as she did not exactly keep a low profile on her arrival in Argentina, flying first class with a Pomeranian dog in tow.

After Interpol issued a warrant for her arrest, she went online on several occasions to declare her innocence on Facebook and posted pictures of Buenos Aires before she was eventually caught in the fashionable Palermo neighbourhood. Her mother, Jeannette Valencia, who travelled to the country weeks ago to work on her daughter's defence, said: "She is no drug trafficker, nor is she the queen of cocaine.

"There are bad intentions - a plot against her. She will prove her innocence."

Sanclemente won her country's National Coffee Queen beauty pageant in 2000 at the age of 21. But she was forced to give up her crown when it was discovered she was married at the time in violation of pageant rules.


/Sky News/
URL: http://www.today.az/news/interesting/68910.html

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