Jailed Mexican Drug Queen Complains of Bed Bugs

(Mexico City) Arrested two weeks ago, Mexico's drug priestess, Sandra Avila, is complaining about the bed bugs and other fauna in jail.

The forty-something Avila, known by the nickname "Queen of the Pacific," is accused of helping organize the Sinaloa drug cartel on Mexico's Pacific coast in the 1990s.

Avila has been heralded as the most glamorous of the narcotics traffickers and is recognized as a vital go-between for the Mexican and Colombian cartels. She is a third-generation member of a family of narco-operatives.

Sandra Avila telephoned Mexico City's Human Rights Commission to moan about the biting bugs and complain she cannot receive gifts of food while behind bars.

She was caught alone driving a BMW sport utility vehicle near her house in the Mexican capital and has been jailed pending trial on charges of organized crime and money laundering in Mexico and the United States.

Also, Avila is famous -- enough so that a song, called a narcocorrido, has been written about her.

The narcocorrido is a contemporary form of the corrido -- a genre of Mexican folk music with its roots in Spain. The narcocorrido sings about the exploits of drug smugglers and narco-barons.

The Mexican band Los Tucanes de Tijuana, noted narcocorrido performers, sang about Sandra Avila in a 2004 song entitled "Fiesta en la Sierra." The ballad describes an exclusive, invitation-only birthday party hosted by a powerful drug capo, at his ranchito escondido ("little hidden ranch") in the mountains. All the guests must arrive in helicopters and airplanes. When one of them steps out of her aircraft, she is immediately recognized as "The Queen of the Pacific."

Frankly, I wouldn't make too much of the fact that a song has been written about her since the Mexicans also have a very popular song which trumpets cockroaches, La Cucaracha.

Sandra Avila is currently sharing a cell with bed bugs at the women's prison of Santa Martha Acatitla.