Beauty queen stripped of crown canada

Beauty queen stripped of crown canada, LA PAZ -- Mexican beauty queen Laura Zuñiga Huizar, detained in her homeland along with a group of presumed drug traffickers this week, has been stripped of the Miss Hispanoamericana title she won in Bolivia, the press in that Andean nation reported Saturday.

The decision was taken Friday by the Bolivia-based Promociones Gloria, which organizes beauty pageants in Bolivia and on Oct. 31 awarded Zuñiga that title in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Promociones Gloria said the decision to remove the title is a "consequence of events of public knowledge in which Miss Laura Zuñiga has been involved," the daily El Deber de Santa Cruz
reported.

According to the daily, Tatiana Limpias, manager of Promociones Gloria company, said Zuñiga violated a rule that requires the pageant winner to demonstrate "adequate behavior, avoid scandals and bad habits and be a good example for society."

The 23-year-old Zuñiga, also the winner this year of the Miss Sinaloa pageant in Mexico, was arrested at the beginning of this week along with seven men in an operation in which authorities also seized weapons and thousands of dollars in cash in the city of Guadalajara.

Zuñiga's presumed boyfriend, Angel Orlando Garcia Urquiza, also one of the detainees, is the brother of Ricardo Garcia, alias "El doctor," one of the leaders of the powerful Juarez cartel.

Promociones Gloria said the title instead will go to Brazilian Vivian Noronha, who will receive her crown in January. The new pageant runner-up is Paraguay's Gabriela Rejala.

Mexican authorities announced Friday that the group of suspects will be held in preventive detention for 40 days on organized crime, drug trafficking, weapons and other charges.

Zuñiga is a native of Cuiliacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, which is the birthplace of the like-named drug cartel considered one of Mexico's most powerful criminal organizations.