The route that the ‘queen of coca’ traced through Panama

Ana María Cameno managed to impose herself in a world of men, but she paid dearly for her daring. For having been the ‘queen of coca’ for years, she will pay 16 years in prison and $21 million to the Spanish justice system. In her criminal journey, she opened a path through Panama, to clean drug money.

Cameno started in the underworld at the early age of 14, moved by love, music and the typical rebellion of adolescence.

He escaped from the iron education of the nuns and the wealthy family to which he belonged and began to swindle in bars frequented by young drug users with the nickname ‘DJ Anita Dynamite’.

In these spaces of bad living, she met the face that introduced her to the underworld, from which she never knew how to get out. “I ended up in this for love and for my need to have money to buy more records,” he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, on July 7, 2019, where he uncovered his story, after having asked permission “to the god orishá of justice, lightning, thunder and fire, in a santero ritual”.

The Spanish ‘queen of coca’, a nickname that seems to be copied from the Mexican ‘queen of the south’ – a ruthless drug kingpin who built an empire in Europe – wanted to show that she was capable of generating her own income without taking orders from anyone. men. This caused sting in the drug ‘barons’ who did not tolerate being controlled by a woman and who did not delay in passing on her bill.

The intention of the business was to generate income to satisfy its own needs. She said that what she earned she bought in clothes and in helping people, in the best Robin Hood style.

The purchase and sale and trafficking of the drug ended up becoming her exclusive way of life, one that allowed her to undergo surgery on her breasts at least seven times, more for health than for aesthetics, she confessed. In an accident, he burst a silicone prosthesis and refused to go to the hospital because his car was loaded. Now her left breast constantly forces her to attend to him.

In a very short time, she was one of the most respected drug traffickers in Spain, the only one who stood out in an environment of testosterone, with a character that alludes to the tattoo with the eyes of a woman and the tiger that is engraved on her right arm. “You survive because of the intelligence and because of the qualities that women have,” she said.

the record

It wasn’t long before a snitch opened his mouth. In a macho world it is difficult for a woman to be at the head. At the age of 22, she fell into the hands of the Police for the first time, with a small amount of pills, at her residence. He spent three years in the Carabanchel jail in Madrid.

He did not teach a lesson and returned to the adventures. She cunningly built a coca empire from scratch, starting the largest drug laboratory in Spain.

In 2011, he knew the betrayal when a person instructed him to keep 300 kilos for someone else to remove. The police did it. In that raid they also found 33 tons of chemical products, $2 million, weapons, luxury vehicles, 470 cell phones, and goods for $50 million. “It was all a trap,” he lamented.

the legend is born

At this moment the legend of the ‘queen of coca’ begins to be built, when the agents placed her as the brain that launched the largest drug laboratory in Europe, with four professors of biochemistry from a Colombian university who developed the process manufacturing and handling of cocaine.

The narco ran a criminal network with figureheads, front companies, with tentacles in the United States and South America and relationships with dangerous gangs, for their illicit business. She was detained for two years. In 2013, she was paroled, but the case is pending trial.

Like the “Phoenix Bird” that she has tattooed on her back, the blonde rose from the ashes. Getting out of the world, in which she was practically all her life, was very difficult. The Police confirmed it in 2014. They seized 100 kilos of coca and $148 thousand. She was accused of drug trafficking, money laundering and illegal possession of weapons.

The queen fell again. This time with the help of recorded listening. She was captured after arriving in a Volkswagen Touareg and parking in an urbanization in Cádiz, where she met two individuals to whom she handed two plastic bags. It was another drug trade.

sumptuous life

After four years and after the investigation time had run out and the wiretaps were annulled as they were considered non-legal, he came out of the bars.

Despite the ups and downs, the process continued and bore fruit on September 28, 2022.

The ‘queen of coca’ had a high standard of living that she could not justify due to the lack of employment. With the distribution and sale of cocaine to third parties, in different parts of Spain, this 51-year-old blonde, born in Burgos, built a fortune: jewelry and watches valued at $50,000, several luxurious properties, high-end vehicles and significant amounts of cash.

Connection with Panama

As it did? ‘The iron lady’, as she was also known, created a structure to launder drug money and convert it into financial products whose profits were sent to Panama.

Cameno and his partner, José Ramón Mora Parra, commissioned a trusted person to contact David García Asenjo, another of the defendants, who had a financial and corporate network to hide illicit money.

García Asenjo created a bridge with José Miguel Artiles, director of Bandenia Banca Privada, to make the transfer to Panama.

She herself delivered the money, which had to travel to an account in the name of another person through Bandemia, a financial institution that is not authorized to operate in Spain. From here the money was transferred to Panama.

On one occasion, Cameno left an envelope with $48,000 in the basement of a cafeteria in Madrid, where he had met with another person who is linked to his criminal activities. She did not go unnoticed by the police officers, who seized $10,000 in her handbag. .

With the sale of 100 kilos, he obtained profits of $400,000, which he cleared through the structure of financial transactions that he sent to Panama. “That they would be monetized by way of compensation or through a casino,” establishes the 97-page sentence that proves that the ‘queen of coca’ led a criminal organization together with her ex-partner, who is a fugitive from justice.

However, the records only show that $54,000 arrived. And, it is unknown if the middleman kept the rest.

Cameno returned to prison with 12 years for drug trafficking and four for money laundering. She was acquitted of the crime of possession of weapons. The sentence declared proven that ‘the queen’ directed a criminal organization, together with her sentimental partner, as the base of the structure, which was completed with other allies who intervened in each operation, others acted as habitual collaborators.

“The saddest thing is that they judge you as a queen and you are not even capable of ruling my house… But since they have made me a queen, well, she always has to be crucified,” she said.