The FGR approved the return of three properties located in southern Mexico City to Sandra Ávila Beltrán, known as the “Queen of the Pacific” and linked to the Sinaloa Cartel. These properties, seized in 2003 as part of preliminary investigation 966/MPFEADS/2002 for drug-related offenses, were released after the cancellation of the seizure was verified, as reported by the FGR to the Fourth District Court for Criminal Matters in Mexico City, presided over by Judge María del Carmen Sánchez Cisneros, according to information published by El Universal.
The decision follows a ruling by the Tenth Collegiate Court for Criminal Matters of the First Circuit, which ordered the proceedings to be restarted in the amparo trial, overturning a previous ruling by Judge Sánchez Cisneros. The court determined that the Attorney General’s Office’s (FGR) failure to comply with the order to hand over the assets, issued on June 17, 2014, had been rectified by providing documentation proving the release of the properties.
Ávila Beltrán was acquitted of cocaine trafficking charges in December 2010 due to lack of evidence, but in 2012 she was extradited to the United States, where she pleaded guilty in a Miami federal court and received a 70-month prison sentence. After being deported to Mexico in 2013, she remained in the federal prison in Tepic until February 2015, when a Collegiate Court overturned her sentence on money laundering charges.
