(Chapter IV) La Reina Del Sur: Inspiration for Costa Rica’s Drug Diva
By Carol Blair The Costa Rica Star This is the fourth installment of The Costa Rica Star’s exclusives six part original series of the upcoming book, “Drug Diva”, by Carol Vaughn the story of one of Central America’s fiercest female narco-traffickers, Cristel Gomez Espinoza. You can read our previous published first installment here , the second installment here and the third here . Mexican beauty Sandra Avila Beltran was having coffee with friends at an upscale coffee shop in Mexico City in 2001, when the police cornered her and took her into custody. A tuna boat had been seized by the authorities carrying over nine million tons of cocaine. The boat was traced by cell phones found on board, back to Sandra and her lover “el Tigre”. At last the “Queen of the Pacific”, also known as Mexico’s “Queen of the South”, had been captured. Similarities between the now 60-year old Mexican and Costa Rica’s 25-year old Queen of the South are legendary. When captured, Sandra declared t