The real Queen of the South

I wonder if Reverte’s novel of Spanish drug-running was inspired by this woman?

A woman who succeeds in a field dominated by men is always intriguing to the public, but when that field happens to be big-time cocaine trafficking, and the woman is graced with both charm and beauty, a criminal celebrity is born. Ever since her arrest last month, Sandra Ávila Beltrán, better known as the Queen of the Pacific, has been getting the kind of press here that would have made Jesse James envious.