An Indiana beauty queen has been caught up in a major drug bust with ties to Mexican drug cartels that has been years in the making.
According to a federal indictment, 34-year-old Glenys Zapata, who was crowned Miss Indiana Latina in 2011, is accused of using her job as a flight attendant to move drug money from Chicago to Southern states and then to Mexico.
She is charged with two counts of money laundering stemming from the transportation of $170,000 in cash on Aug. 7, 2019, and the transportation of at least $140,000 in cash on Sept. 10, 2019.
Zapata was one of 18 suspects arrested when federal law enforcement targeted Oswaldo Espinosa, one of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) most wanted fugitives.
Zapata, along with two bank tellers – Zapata’s sister, Irenis Zapata, and Georgina Banuelos – were recently arrested during the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force’s arrest of Oswaldo Espinosa.
According to the most recent federal indictment, filed May 16, Espinosa is alleged to be the mastermind of a multi-million dollar Mexico-based drug trafficking ring that has flooded U.S. streets with thousands of kilograms of cocaine.
Between 2018 and 2023, Espinosa employed seemingly ordinary, unremarkable workers like Zapata as part of a criminal enterprise that allegedly used warehouses and garages across Chicago to hide money and drugs.
The cash and cocaine were transported in semi-trailer trucks and on airplanes from smuggling hubs in the Midwest to the southern United States and Mexico, “including via commercial airline flights and with the assistance of Glenys Zapata,” according to the indictment.
According to court documents, Espinosa was the head of a Mexican international drug trafficking organization (DTO) known as the Espinosa DTO.
The latest indictment, which includes the charges against Zapata, details eight drug trafficking cases that took place between 2021 and 2023 and 15 cash transportation cases that took place between November 2019 and March 2022.
The investigation into Espinosa was spearheaded by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which was established to take down major U.S. drug cartels.
The Espinosa DTO is a small cartel compared to larger organizations like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel, which control most of Mexico and its seaports and have tentacles throughout the United States.
In a September 2023 study, researchers estimated that in total there are about 150 Mexican cartels of various sizes, with approximately 175,000 “active members” (as of 2022). From Science.
And many of these organized crime syndicates are extending their illegal businesses into the United States, smuggling drugs and money across the border.
According to a May DEA report, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico’s “most powerful and ruthless cartels,” operate in all 50 states.
The main products of both cartels are methamphetamine and phenanthril, and the Mexican cartels “have created the worst drug crisis in U.S. history,” according to the report.
Dismantling large-scale drug cartels is one of the primary goals of federal law enforcement.
In 2023, law enforcement within 150 miles of the border made nearly 600 seizures of cash totaling $18 million, according to the DEA report.
“DEA’s number one operational priority is to relentlessly pursue and defeat the two Mexican drug cartels that are the primary drivers of the current fentanyl addiction epidemic in the United States,” the report said.
The operation will “focus resources on America’s most violent and overdose-ridden cities, targeting the violent dealers of fentanyl and weapons that are killing thousands of Americans every week.”
