MEXICO CITY, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Convicted drug smuggler Sandra Avila Beltran, known as the "Queen of the Pacific," was freed from jail Saturday after a judge accepted her appeal.
She was arrested in September 2007 in Mexico City and was later given a six-year prison sentence in the United States before being extradited to Mexico in 2013 to face money-laundering charges.
She was sentenced to five years in Mexico for money laundering in 2014, but was now released because a judge agreed with her claim that she already served time for that crime.
Avila was released at about 10 p.m. from the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 4 prison in Tepic, the largest city in the Mexican state of Nayarit.
#Mexico orders release of Sandra Avila Beltran, the famed Drug Trafficking 'Queen.'
http://t.co/xx7c230Gim pic.twitter.com/44uq1SIGTh
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) February 8, 2015
Avila is the niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, known as "The Godfather" and the founder of the Guadalajara Cartel who is serving a 40-year prison sentence in a maximum security prison in Mexico. He was convicted of drug trafficking and of the murder of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena.