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Sandra Ávila Beltrán, known as the "Queen of the Pacific," said in an interview for The Guardian newspaper that she was not surprised when Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was able to escape from the prison of El Altiplano last July.
“I was not surprised, money buys everything in Mexico. But it made me happy,” she said.
Asked what kind of collaboration from crooked officials Guzmán would have needed, she said: “It has to be help from the highest levels of government. The federal prison system is tough. To be able to buy that system? It has to be from up high, not the director of a prison. Nor the guards. It has to be at the cabinet level.”
During the interview, published today by the British daily, Ávila Beltrán scoffed at the futility drug prohibition and criticized the corruption among Mexican politicians.
When asked how they would react cartels before the legalization of marijuana and the possible end of a lucrative business, she assured that it will not matter.
"Narco-trafficking is a business that has not been legalized,” says Ávila. “It is a business like alcohol [during prohibition] which was not legal … In those days, an alcohol salesman was considered a bad person, but when they legalized it, the people who sold it became respectable. I don't see that alcohol or tobacco salesmen feel guilty. You go to a restaurant and a bar and the owners don't feel guilty.”
Asked about how cartels will react to the legalization, she said that it doesn't matter because “there will always be the invention of new drugs. The important thing is to continue with the business.”
In the end, drug use is a personal decision in her opinion. “The statistics show that more people die from alcohol than drugs and where alcohol is sold, no one feels remorse,” she said. “No one is obliged to use.”
She added that the real blame on the number of deaths related to drug trafficking and the cartels is on the authorities.
“The government at times has to kill people because it is not convenient to imprison witnesses who could testify against them.”
The problem, she insisted, is not with those who can't leave the cartels, but those who prefer not to. “There are people with loads of money, but they don't get out. They don't want to – this is what they like to do. It is like a Formula-1 race car driver who says: ‘I like speed, I like to race.'”
Ávila Beltrán was arrested in Mexico City in 2007, but was acquitted three years later for charges of organized crime, drug crimes and money laundering.
In 2012 she was extradited to the United States, but a year later and after pleading guilty, she was transferred to Mexico back to Mexico, being released from prison on February 7, 2015.
