They call her the narcomodelo – a one-time Colombian beauty queen who dreamed of catwalk fame and a life of luxury and glamour.
But 31-year-old Angie Sanclemente Valencia's modelling career came to an abrupt end in an Argentinian court after she was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for her role in a cocaine racket that smuggled drugs from South America to Europe.
"This happened to me because I am Colombian," Sanclemente complained after being sentenced, according to reports in Argentina's El Clarín newspaper.
At the age of 21, Sanclemente was crowned as Colombia's Queen of Coffee in a pageant. Afterwards, she reportedly spent eight years in Mexico before moving to Buenos Aires with her Argentinian boyfriend, Nicolas Gualco.
On Wednesday, Gualco and his uncle Daniel Monroy were also jailed for six years and eight months for their roles in the cocaine racket.
Sanclemente's fall began in December 2009 after another model, María Noel López Iglesias, was arrested while attempting to board a flight from Argentina to Cancún, Mexico, with suitcases stuffed with around 55kg (121lb) of cocaine.
Iglesias's capture triggered a series of arrests and eventually led police to the narcomodelo herself. Police claimed Sanclemente had been responsible for recruiting young female drug mules to smuggle drugs into Europe.
Sanclemente was arrested at a youth hostel in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires, where she had being staying under a false name, in May 2010.
Her modelling and beauty pageant past led newspapers in Argentina and Colombia to pore over details of her life, debating whether she was a "narco queen" or simply a "victim of love" who had inadvertently been lured into a life of crime by Gualco.
One video, posted on YouTube, described her as "La narco más sexy" – the sexiest narco.
In an interview with Colombia's El País newspaper from her prison cell in Argentina, Sanclemente described herself as a "super-normal person, looking for opportunities in acting, which is what I love doing, [and] always striving to fulfil my dreams and goals".
Speaking to another Colombian newspaper, she said: "I'm sad, in debt and alone. God has given me the strength to face all this. Something good will come of it. I don't want to paint myself as the victim, but I have been greatly mistreated and humiliated."
During the trial, Sanclemente repeatedly denied recruiting mules to smuggle cocaine to Europe via Cancún, claiming her only "sin" was having fallen in love with the wrong man.
"I'm not a narcotraficante," she told the court. "I don't need to get mixed up in dirty things."
