A former Bolivian beauty queen has been arrested after her plane, carrying nearly £12 million worth of cocaine, was forced to make an emergency landing in a cornfield due to a fuel shortage.
Jade Callau, 21, who was crowned Miss FexpoBorja 2019 in her hometown of San Borja, had gained some media attention, including appearances on TV as recently as August 2024. Just 10 days before her arrest, she shared a TikTok video where she danced and applied makeup for her 6,000 followers. In one post, seemingly directed at an ex, she wrote: “My greatest revenge will be that you see me every day more happy and beautiful.”
Now, Callau is in Argentina, where authorities discovered her small plane, a Cessna 210, containing 359 kg of cocaine valued at approximately £17.5 million. She and 42-year-old Brazilian pilot Carlos Costas Diaz were forced to land the aircraft in a cornfield in the Parana Delta, about 900 miles from Bolivia, after running out of fuel during their flight to an undisclosed location.
Nestor Roncaglia, the Security Minister of Entre Rios province, stated: “In the early hours of Thursday, January 23, police were alerted to a plane that had landed in a field in the Islas del Ibicuy area. The two individuals aboard, a Brazilian man and a Bolivian woman, fled but were later apprehended.”
Roncaglia confirmed that, with the help of the National Gendarmerie, the police searched the plane and found 352 packages of cocaine, weighing a total of 359 kilograms. He estimated the street value of the drugs to be around €14 million in Europe, or roughly £11.75 million.
He also noted that the plane had likely come from Bolivia, traveling approximately 1,500 kilometers, but was not intended to land in Entre Rios. The emergency landing was solely due to a lack of fuel.
Bolivia is one of the leading producers of coca plants, which are used to make cocaine, alongside Peru and Colombia. The drugs are often transported to Colombia, where the majority of the world’s cocaine is produced.
