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MEXICO CITY - A Mexican beauty queen detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations has been stripped of her crown in the Hispanoamerican Queen pageant.
Laura Zuniga, 23, lost the top honours for "failure to comply with the regulations of the title she represents", a Bolivia-based pageant organising company said.
Zuniga beat more than 19 contestants from Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States to win the title in October. Runner-up Vivian Noronha, of Brazil, will get the crown.
Seven men, some of them suspected drug traffickers, and Zuniga were detained in western Mexico a week ago when authorities at a military checkpoint found a large stash of weapons, ammunition and US$53,300 ($92,000) in one of the party's vehicles.
Zuniga, who told police the group planned to travel to Bolivia and Colombia to shop, holds the Miss Sinaloa title from a Mexican state beauty contest in July. She was third in the Miss Mexico contest and was expected to represent her country in next year's Miss International contest.
Miss Mexico pageant organisers said they were awaiting the results of the investigation before deciding what to do.
Questions are being asked about Zuniga's string of pageant victories, especially the Miss Sinaloa contest.
"Everything indicates she won her crown through the intervention of her boyfriend, a drug lord," wrote columnist Carlos Puig in the Mexican newspaper Milenio.
Zuniga, a former kindergarten teacher, was detained with boyfriend Angel Orlando Garcia Urquiza, a key player in the Juarez cartel, and six bodyguards, when their convoy was stopped.
While there is no hard evidence Zuniga improperly won any of her titles, Mexican drug traffickers are known to take innocuous contests seriously.
In November, 17 people - mostly suspected traffickers - were killed in an argument over bets on a horse race near the Mexico-Guatemala border.
- OBSERVER, AP
