<P> Despite her high - profile lifestyle, Beltrán long avoided leaving police any evidence . In 2002, however, she unexpectedly contacted authorities for help when her teenage son was kidnapped for a $5 million USD ransom . She eventually got her son back, but not without raising suspicions that launched an investigation . It took more than four years and 30 federal agents to close in and finally arrest Ávila . She was arrested, along with Espinoza Ramírez, on 28 September 2007, in Mexico City . She was charged with and convicted of laundering money for billions of dollars worth of drugs smuggled from Colombia to Mexico . </P> <P> In a tape of her police interrogation, she describes herself as a housewife who earns a little money on the side "selling clothes and renting houses ." When asked why she had been arrested, she responded, "Because of an extradition order to the United States ." Her life behind bars at the Santa Martha Acatitla women's prison in Mexico City has apparently not been to her liking as she filed a complaint with a Mexico City human rights commission, saying her cell had insects, which she referred to as noxious fauna . She also said the ban on bringing in food from restaurants violated her human rights . </P> <P> In March 2009, journalist Anderson Cooper interviewed Sandra Ávila for the television news magazine 60 Minutes . </P> <P> In January 2011 an investigation was launched after a doctor was allowed to enter the prison to give Beltrán a Botox injection treatment, a therapy that is not authorised for inmates . The prison's director and hospital chief were relieved of their duties . Although all of the drug charges were dropped in early 2011, she remains in jail for possession of illegal weapons, and is undergoing extradition proceedings to the United States for drug trafficking . </P>

La reina del sur cast in real life