A model and former beauty queen has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a rival cartel member she was reportedly engaged to.
Vanessa Gurrola Peraza is accused of killing Christian “El Chato” Espinoza Silver.
He is an operative linked to Mexico’s Arellano-Félix Cartel.
READ MORE: Incel ‘kills’ ex, her mum, and taxi driver after joining anti-feminist group
The alleged murder took place on 17 February, last year in San Diego, California, US.
She is due to appear in court on Monday (20 Oct).
Gurrola was arrested in the early hours of 10 October.
The 32-year-old is being held at the Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee on a first-degree murder charge.
Gurrola is also suspected of having ties to Los Chapitos, a faction of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.
The deceased, El Chato, had reportedly been in a relationship with Gurrola since 2017, and the pair were said to be engaged.
His killing has been unofficially linked to the ongoing turf war between Los Chapitos and remnants of the Arellano-Félix Cartel.
Gurrola first rose to fame after being crowned “Queen of the Floral Games Festival” at Mexico’s Mazatlán Carnival in 2011.
She later launched her own weight-loss product line, expanding her public profile beyond modelling, as reported by NeedToKnow.
In September last tear at the height of the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal conflict, she was accused of working as an operative for Los Chapitos, the faction led by Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
She allegedly funded her luxury lifestyle through real estate and money-laundering schemes tied to the group.
Gurrola boasts 1.4m Instagram followers, with her last post showing her on a spiritual retreat in Bali, Indonesia.
She first went viral in 2018 after being mistaken for El Chapo’s wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro.
Mexican media later dubbed her “Emma Coronel’s double” for her striking resemblance to the former teenage beauty queen.
Gurrola once admitted that the confusion had helped boost her fame:
“It doesn’t bother me – my followers have even gone up,” she told a TV interviewer in 2019.
