Mexican Beauty Queen Stripped of Title

Updating last week's report, 23-year-old Mexican beauty queen Laura Zuniga has been stripped of her Miss Hispanoamericana 2008 title for her involvement with suspected drug traffickers.

Pageant promoters said Zuniga failed "to comply with the regulations of the title she represents."

Zuniga was ordered jailed on Friday for a further 40 days while investigators probe possible ties to violent smuggling gangs.

Police say they suspect the dark-haired model, who won the Miss Sinaloa and Queen of Hispanic America pageants earlier this year, was the girlfriend of one of the men arrested. Investigators say he is linked to the Juarez cartel, which operates lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

"Promociones Gloria, the company that created and is responsible for (the pageant) has dismissed Laura Zuniga as the official Hispanic America Queen 2008," the organisation said in a statement, according to La Paz daily La Razon.

With Zuniga stripped of the crown, it now goes to Brazilian babe Vivian Noronha. The Miss Sinaloa 2008 crown, however, stays with Zuniga -- for now.

Interestingly, it is now being suggested that Miss Zuniga's string of pageant victories may have been through strong-arm intervention by her drug lord boyfriend. So far, though, there's no hard evidence of impropriety.

Tip: Charley Nestor

Companion post at The Jawa Report.