Colombian model turns 'narco queen'

Angie Sanclemente Valencia had been hiding out in Buenos Aires since December, when airport police caught a 21-year-old Argentine woman with 55 kg of cocaine in her baggage boarding a flight to Cancun. That led to arrests of six other alleged gang members who fingered Colombia’s former “coffee queen” as a ringleader.

Argentina’s media quickly dubbed Sanclemente the “Narco Queen,” but two officials involved in the case said that her specific role in the smuggling organisation has not been established.

“When they organised the trafficking of cocaine to Mexico, she participated in the meetings,” said one of the sources.

Police were able to determine Sanclemente’s identity because she had made quite an impression upon her arrival in Argentina, flying first class with a Pomeranian dog, the other official said. The 30-year-old model was captured on Wednesday in a hostel for foreigners in the fashionable Palermo neighbourhood.

“She is no drug trafficker, nor is she the queen of cocaine,” her mother Jeannette Valencia declared after the arrest.

“There are bad intentions — a plot against her. She will prove her innocence,” Valencia told reporters.