Sandra Avila Beltran was released from prison after winning an appeal. The judge in her case ruled her current sentence was based on offenses she already served time for, the BBC reports.

Avila, who is known as the "Queen of the Pacific," is said to have helped finance former Colombian drug lord Juan Diego Espinosa, whom she had a romantic relationship with.

Avila was first arrested in Mexico City in 2007. She was arrested with Espinosa and jailed in the U.S.

Prosecutors allege Avila helped bridge drug trading between Mexico and Colombia.

After her six-year jail sentence in the U.S., Avila was extradited to Mexico where she faced money laundering charges. That led to a five-year sentence in Mexico on those charges.

The judge decided Avila Beltran had already served time for the money laundering charges and ordered her release.

She is one of the highest-profiled women to be linked to illegal drug trading. She allegedly helped Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman with the Sinaloa cartel in the 1990s. Guzman was detained last year, but he was known as a powerful drug boss in Mexico, according to Reuters.

Avila got her nickname as the "Queen of the Pacific" because she was supposedly came up with effective routes that could be used between Mexico's Pacific Coast and California to smuggle drugs.

Mexico is well aware of Avila, according to Fox News via the Associated Press, because she is the niece of the so-called "godfather" of Mexican drug smuggling, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. Gallardo is serving a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking and the killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Avila was acquitted on charges relating to a seizure of at least nine tons of cocaine trying to be transported into the U.S. from Mexico aboard a ship in 2010. A Mexican appeals court agreed and upheld the verdict in 2011.

She maintains her innocence and says her money comes from selling clothes and rental properties.

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