“Buchonas”: Life of luxury, Crime and Scalpel when marrying Mexican drug traffickers

Due to their style and growing influence within drug trafficking, the “buchonas”, as the women of the drug lords in Mexico are known, are once again on everyone’s lips after the arrest of the wife of El Chapo Guzman, Emma colonel.

Nicknamed by some as “The Kardashian of Sinaloa”, Colonel two years ago monopolized New York flashes during the trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán for her stunning style and her religious attendance at all audiences with the desire to be close to her husband.

Arrested last Monday in Virginia, this former beauty queen now faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment since U.S accuses her of “conspiracy” to traffic drugs and “encourage” the activities of the Sinaloa cartel that led El Chapo.

THE NARCOCULTURE OF THE “BUCHONAS”

Colonel, 31 years old and Mexican and American nationality, embodies the stereotype of the so-called “buchonas”, as it is popularly known in Mexico to the wives of drug traffickers who like luxuries and surgeries.

The term derives from a luxurious brand of whiskey that is allegedly a favorite among drug traffickers.

But it is also a symptom of the increasing presence of women in organized crime.

Telenovelas are usually portrayed with jewelry, expensive bags, luxury cars, exaggerated makeup, striking nails and fitted clothes to highlight the attributes of these “buchonas”, often objectified and displayed as a trophy by the narco on duty.

All this narcocultural propaganda projects a dream life and enjoy the money in exclusive parties, discos and bars.

“It’s a juicy environment where they get involved in organized crime, to have money to show that they have it.” Javier Oliva, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), explained this Saturday to Efe.

Beyond all discretion, drug lord lovers have a growing presence on social networks, where they boast of luxuries, aesthetic operations and even weapons.

The same Emma colonel didn’t exactly take a backseat, because for the past few years she has been giving television interviews, always denying her husband’s drug trafficking, and even creating a clothing line based on the figure of El Chapo.

“She was showing off money that was the product of death and crime”, stressed the expert.

For Oliva, it was this “reckless attitude” that pushed her towards her arrest, although it is not surprising since “the biography of Emma Coronel lets you see that she grew up in an environment of criminality”, since her father was also arrested for drug trafficking .

FROM “OBJECT WOMEN” TO “THE BOSSES”

But beyond Coronel’s life of luxury, the investigation in the United States indicates her with an active role in the drug trafficking business of the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest of Mexico, something increasingly common in drug lord lovers.

She even tried to bribe the Mexican prison system to achieve a third escape for Chapo from prison in 2016.

According to a study by the Washington-based organization InSight Crime, women have traditionally played a “subordinate” role within organized crime, with “vulnerable” tasks such as harvesting drugs or transporting narcotics (mules).

In this sense, the Mexican Senate last year approved an amnesty law to empty the prisons of women living in poverty who were convicted of small-scale drug trafficking.

However, the same study points out that some women have taken advantage of their relationship with the bosses to assume leadership in organizations. They are “buchonas” who made their way to stop being an object and become “the bosses.”

“Undoubtedly the capture of Emma Coronel shows how women have been involved, who previously had no participation. Today women, wives, lovers and daughters have become actors , Oliva said.

Colonel it is not the first example. Enedina Arellano Félix, alias “Narcomami”, assumed command of the Tijuana Cartel in 2002 after the murder or capture of all her brothers.

Also after the capture in 2014 of Héctor Beltrán Leyva, leader of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel in Mexico, his wife Clara Elena Laborín was in charge of coordinating the business.

At the time considered one of the most beautiful women in Sinaloa, she was captured in 2016 and put behind bars, leaving behind the time when she paraded on catwalks.