Behind the flawless makeup, designer handbags, and pouting selfies lies a world of brutal violence. Across Latin America, a disturbing new generation of women is merging social media glamour with the blood-soaked reality of organised crime. These so-called 'Cartel Queens' are using platforms like Instagram and TikTok to project a dangerous cocktail of beauty, luxury, and menace, drawing in a growing audience of young followers.
The Glamorous Facade and the Violent Reality
Their feeds shimmer with curated perfection: luxury cars, gleaming weaponry, and opulent lifestyles. Yet, this seductive online persona is a far cry from the grim truth. Criminologists warn this trend represents a dangerous glamorisation of cartel life, an illusion that obscures a fate of early death or lifelong imprisonment.
The deadly stakes of this double life were brutally exposed last month with the killing of Karina Abundis, known online as La Chucky. The twenty-something influencer-turned-hitwoman was gunned down in a shootout with police on the US-Mexico border. Her online persona, built on pouty selfies and designer clothes, secretly served as a cover for her operations with the feared Gulf Cartel.
Professor David Wilson starkly summarises the reality: "What we are dealing with specifically now is a glamorisation of an involvement in a cartel, which is not the reality. The reality of an involvement in a cartel is that you will lose your life early or you'll spend your life in prison."
Case Studies: From Social Media Stardom to Savage Ends
La Chucky's story is not unique. She is one of several young women whose rapid, ruthless climbs within violent organisations have ended in swift and savage falls.
La Catrina, born María Guadalupe López Esquivel, rose with astonishing speed through the ranks of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Named for a Grim Reaper tattoo on her thigh, she was linked to extortion and the 2019 massacre of 13 police officers. Despite her designer wardrobe and trademark gold-plated gun, her end was anything but glamorous. Footage from January 2020 captured her, just 21 years old, gasping for air and bloodied after being shot in the neck by security forces.
In Colombia, Karen Julieth Ojeda Rodríguez, known as 'La Muñeca' (The Doll), used her striking looks to evade suspicion. Believed to have risen to second-in-command of the Los de la M gang by age 22, she allegedly coordinated assassinations. Her arrest in December 2023, captured in viral footage of her being led away in a crop top with a deadpan stare, turned her into a dark internet emblem.
The archetype of the 'Cartel Queen' finds perhaps its most famous example in Emma Coronel Aispuro, the former beauty queen and wife of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán. Her Instagram feed showcased a lavish lifestyle built on the Sinaloa cartel's empire, inspiring a generation. The fantasy shattered in 2021 when she was sentenced to three years in a US prison for drug trafficking.
The New Face of Organised Crime and Its Dangerous Allure
This trend highlights a strategic shift by criminal networks. They are increasingly recruiting individuals who command online influence and can project a veneer of legitimacy, using glamour as a tool to shield illicit activities.
Venezuelan model and DJ Jimena Romina Araya Navarro (Rosita) exemplifies this. Sanctioned by the US Treasury earlier this year for allegedly supporting the violent Tren de Aragua gang, her social media showed only luxury and gloss. Authorities accuse her of moving money for senior figures, a reality completely absent from her curated feed.
The disconnect between the glamorous online image and the brutal allegations is precisely what fuels a macabre public fascination. For young followers, these women symbolise aspirational power and luxury. For law enforcement, they represent the new, social-media-savvy face of organised crime. Their digital legacy of seductive glamour often outlives the perilous reality that created it, leaving a dangerous and intoxicating myth in its wake.
