When the Mexican marines burst into El Chapo’s apartment, the biggest drug dealer on earth was making breakfast for his beauty queen wife and their two-year-old twin girls, who had joined daddy and mommy on the lam with little pink suitcases.

Although El Chapo’s wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, is an undeniable beauty, some may question the legitimacy of her crown. She was voted the local Coffee and Guava Queen in 2007 over four other contenders only after hundreds of black-clad gunmen on motorcycles flooded the town and El Chapo himself flew in with even more gunmen to host a lavish party to announce his intention to marry her.

In ensuring he was marrying a beauty queen, El Chapo was observing a tradition that goes back more than half a century, when the nephew of Mafia Boss Sam Giancana married Miss Sinaloa of 1958. This completely legitimate queen, Kenya Kemmermand Bastidas, subsequently moved with her husband to Sicily, where the Mafia made known its views regarding one of its own marrying a Mexican, no matter how beautiful she was. She was found murdered in her oceanfront home in 1960. She left behind an 11-month-old daughter.