It hasn’t been a very happy holiday for Laura Elena Zuniga Huizar, the reigning Reina Hispanoamericana and 2008 winner of one of Mexico’s most renowned beauty pageants, Nuestra Belleza. Laura Elena wasn’t celebrating Christmas Eve with family in Culiacán but rather in a jail cell with her narco buddies. TIME reports:

In October, Laura Zuniga, athletic and 5′ 7″ tall, posed sleekly for the paparazzi. She wore an alluring pink dress and, more importantly, the coveted crown of Miss Hispanic America. Just before Christmas, she again stood before a scrum of Mexican photographers, but this time holding her head low and wearing a pair of handcuffs while police showed off the 9 mm pistols, semi-automatic rifles and $53,000 in cash she had allegedly been caught with. Her problems only deepened on Friday, when a judge ordered her and a man described as her boyfriend, along with six others found with the stash, to be further detained for 40 days pending charges on racketeering, drug trafficking, guns and money laundering.

Damn, Gina! And she looked so innocent.

The scandal has rocked Mexico, with newspaper front pages focusing on a pathetic photo (seen in the video above) of Laura looking miserable with her narco cronies, and an arsenal sprawled out before them. Laura Elena is only 23 years old and is looking at a jail sentence of an undetermined duration. Oh, and they took away her crowns.

Via / TIME