Mexican Beauty Queen Busted With Drug Mobsters

Miss Hispanic America found traveling with cartel's Mr. Big in gun-filled truck
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 24, 2008 3:17 AM CST
Mexican Beauty Queen Busted With Drug Mobsters
In this image composite, Laura Zuniga is crowned as Miss Sinaloa State at left , and is shown to the press with unidentified gunmen after her arrest in Zapopan, Mexico, yesterday.   (AP Photo)

Miss Hispanic America 2008 will be finishing this year in jail after cops busted her traveling with seven alleged drug cartel mobsters, the Houston Chronicle reports. Laura Zuniga, from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa, was stopped at a military checkpoint near Guadalajara in a truck full of guns, ammunition and cash. She told police she and her pals were going on "a shopping trip" to Bolivia and Colombia.

The beauty queen's boyfriend—a kingpin in the Juarez drug cartel—was arrested along with her. Police did not disclose what charges Zuniga faces. Officials of the organization that ran the beauty contests Zuniga won said they had had no idea she had ties to the underworld—and would decide after an investigation whether she could keep her crown.
(More beauty queen stories.)

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