The war on Mexico’s deadly cartels spread from the streets to the web after the daughter of a notorious drug lord sparked an outrage by posing in an outfit featuring the symbol of her father’s gang.
Cartel princess: Aspiring Mexican pop singer Melissa Plancarte sparked a backlash after posing in this photo in a dress featuring the symbol of her drug lord father’s cartel, Knights Templar
Telling nickname: Melissa goes by the stage name ‘La Princessa De La Banda,’ loosely translated as ‘cartel princess’
The controversial selfie that appeared on Instagram shows Melissa Plancarte, an aspiring pop singer known by her telling stage name, ‘La Princessa De La Banda,’ in a skimpy dress emblazoned with a massive red cross against a white background.
The emblem best associated with medieval crusaders has been adopted by the Knights Templar cartel, which is allegedly controlled by Plancarte’s father, Enrique Plancarte Solis, and a half-dozen others.
Bombshell: It has been revealed that Melissa Plancarte is the daughter of one of seven leaders of the Knights Templar cartel, Enrique Plancarte Solis
The ruthless criminal organization has been spreading a reign of terror in parts of the Michoacan state in western Mexico.
Melissa Plancarte’s alleged sartorial tribute to her father’s life of crime comes at a time when vigilante groups are battling cartels in Mexico’s villages and towns.
This week, Mexican officials announced that they have legalized the country’s growing self-defense groups following the capture of Melissa Plancarte’s relative – one of the four top leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel.
Melissa. the self-styled ‘cartel princess,’ and her brother, Enrique Jr, or ‘Kike’, who is also an aspiring singer, have been posting glamour shots of themselves on Facebook and Intagram, and sharing their music videos on YouTube.
Recording under the label of Planrécords, the Plancarte siblings have performed with a number of well-known Mexican singers and bands, Hispanically Speaking blog reported.
Last week, Miss Plancarte addressed her relationship with her notorious father, releasing a statement on her Facebook page in which she sought to distance herself from Enrique Plancarte’s criminal activities.
‘Regarding my father, I naturally love him, but I am not the one to judge him nor I am responsible for his acts, and I don’t have any regrets,’ she said in the statement. ‘I’m totally oblivious to the situations that people are linking me with.
‘My world, my dream and my passion is music and I have been devoted to it for a while, at the same time I focus on my studies. My career can not be tainted by events that I don’t take part in.’
The voluptuous blonde added that her career in music has been ‘transparent and honest,’ according to Latin Times.
‘I think the focus of the media and people involved in the conflicts in my state must be something else and not my music and my career since it has nothing to do with it,’ she noted.
The controversy over the Plancarte family exploded after it was discovered that Melissa and Kike jr were hired by the Michoacan government to perform at a public fair in 2012, Blouin News reported.
To make matters worse, it has been revealed that Melissa got a permission to shoot a music video with Cuban singer Julio Camejo in the historic Michoacan Palace of Justice.
The string of explosive disclosures about the ‘cartel princess’ and her brother have been widely attributed to the local vigilante groups, which have been waging a public relations war against the Knights Templar and their families.
The scandal comes just days after Mexico announced that it had captured one of Enrique Plancarte Solis’s relatives, Dionisio Loya Plancarte, known as ‘El Tio’ (‘The Uncle’) – a top member of the Knights Templar.
It is believed that Dionisio Plancarte got his nickname because he is the uncle of Melissa Plancarte’s father.
The Knights emerged from a split in another cartel in Michoacan known as La Familia and have controlled large swaths of the restive mountainous state in recent years, extorting farmers and local businesses and diversifying away from drug trafficking to activities such as mining.
The rising number of homicides in the state helped spur the emergence of heavily armed vigilante groups which this month occupied several of the Knights’ Michoacan strongholds.
The government initially called on the vigilantes to disarm, but the so-called ‘self-defense’ groups refused, and security forces are now tolerating their presence in much of Michoacan.
President Enrique Pena Nieto said last week that some of the vigilantes had ‘genuinely organized to defend themselves.’
The government has offered to incorporate the vigilantes into formal police ranks and give them training, in tandem with job-creating development programs.
Questions have been raised about who is arming and funding the vigilantes, with some locals and security analysts saying there is evidence rival cartels have infiltrated them.
