A former Indiana beauty pageant queen is facing charges that she helped cocaine traffickers transport $310,000 in drug proceeds to Mexico on commercial airline trips in a case that led to the seizure of a private jet in Gary, Indiana, in 2021.
Glenis Zapata, 34, of Lafayette, Indiana, who was working as a flight attendant, was indicted in Chicago in a federal case that also saw her sister Ilenis Zapata, 33, and Georgina Banuelos, 39, charged. They also are from Lafayette.
Ilenis Zapata and Banuelos have been charged with laundering $400,000 in drug proceeds by exchanging lower-denomination bills for bigger bills. They also failed to file currency reports for the transactions, according to the indictment.
Fifteen others — including reputed ringleader Oswaldo “Gordo” Espinosa, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued — previously were charged with being part of a ring that federal authorities say smuggled thousands of pounds of cocaine from Mexico to Chicago and other cities.
The U.S. government confiscated a Bombardier Challenger jet in November 2021 at the Gary airport after cocaine was offloaded from the plane and driven to Chicago, where federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized 175 pounds of cocaine in a sport-utility vehicle and 44 pounds in luggage near a downtown hotel, according to an indictment.
The plane had been flown from Mexico to Houston, where the cocaine was loaded before continuing to Gary, the indictment said. Glenis Zapata wasn’t a flight attendant on that plane, sources say. It’s unclear which airline she was working for.
In 2011, Glenis Zapata won the Miss Indiana Latina beauty pageant after graduating from Lafayette High School two years earlier, according to a story in the Journal and Courier newspaper in Lafayette that reported Zapata said the pageant highlighted the culture and values of the Latino community.
“This, along with the organization’s motto, ‘More than a model, a role model,’ is what uniquely sets us apart for great success,” she said.
Zapata, her sister and Banuelos couldn’t be reached for comment about the indictment.
“It was devastating for her,” said Michael John Petro, Glenis Zapata’s lawyer. “She dropped her son off at school, and they grabbed her. Whatever message they are trying to send her is a very strong message.”
The women were each released Tuesday in lieu of $20,000 bail, court records show.
Federal agents said they seized more than 1,775 pounds of cocaine and $7.8 million in drug proceeds from the ring at locations across the Chicago area and in Indiana, Tennessee and Maryland.
The federal government also is seeking to confiscate a second plane — a 1973 Cessna — from one of the defendants, Ricardo Tello, along with luxury watches.
Tello, a dual citizen of Mexico and the United States, was the head of one of two Chicago cells of the operation, coordinating cocaine shipments in tractor-trailer trucks, prosecutors say.
According to court records, Tello owns Xoco Transport. One of the company’s trucks was stopped in 2020 by police officers, who seized more than $900,000.
Tello has denied any connection to the money. He’s in jail awaiting trial after a judge ruled earlier this year that he would be a flight risk if he were allowed to go free.
