El Patrón’s beauty queen mistress murdered at Los Ríos restaurant; Did she know too much?

Former Miss Ecuador candidate Landy Párraga was murdered Sunday while she ate at a restaurant in Quevedo in Los Ríos Province. Parraga had been under investigation in the Metastasis case because of her romantic relationship with drug kingpin Leandro Norero, alias El Patrón.

Landy Párraga

According to witnesses at the shopping mall cevicheria, two men approached Párraga and shot her several times at close range. Police said she had posted her location moments earlier on Instagram.

The 23-year-old victim, a public relations employee at a Quevedo firm, had competed in several beauty pageants, including the Miss Ecuador pageant, and was the current co-queen of Quevedo.

One of the prosecutors investigating the murder said that Párraga had been interviewed on “more than one occasion” in the Metastasis drug trafficking and corruption investigation. “We believe she was familiar with Norero’s operation and probably knew the names of judges and politicians that he paid off,” he said.  “We will not know until we complete our work but this is probably a case where she knew too much.”

According to Metastasis interviews, two of his associates claimed Norero had considered ordering Párraga killed two years ago while he was in the Cotopaxi prison. According to transcripts, Norero was worried his wife would discover his affair with Párraga.