The AP reports on the legal battle over the ownership of a diamond-encrusted pendant between convicted drug trafficker Carlos Landin Martinez and the US Government.

From the AP:

Convicted Gulf Cartel captain Carlos Landin Martinez wants his bling back.But the federal government says Landin bought the jewel-encrusted pendant of the patron saint of lost causes with drug money and so it’s theirs.

Neither side will budge, so it’ll be up to a South Texas jury to decide the case named United States of America vs. Two Pieces of Jewelry.

The pendant of the patron St. Jude — which he was wearing when he was nabbed by a federal agent — is 10 karats of gold studded with 128 diamonds, 36 emeralds and one ruby, hanging from a 24-inch 14-karat gold chain, valued at $12,400.

The portly middle-aged Landin, inexplicably nicknamed “el Puma,” was convicted on drug trafficking charges for collecting “pisos,” or taxes, from drug traffickers who wanted to use valuable smuggling routes controlled by the Gulf Cartel. They said Landin, a retired Tamaulipas state police investigator, was the Gulf Cartel’s No. 2 man in Reynosa, Mexico.

Landin was wearing the gold chain and pendant when an off-duty drug agent arrested him at a grocery store in McAllen where he was buying watermelon last year.

A DEA aagent has stated that having a huge diamond-encrusted pendant is a requirement for any high level drug trafficker.

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent suggested in written testimony that the jewelry was a status symbol and a marketing tool that came from ill-gotten gains.

Special Agent Jaime Fernandez said in a sworn statement, “Persons who engage in large-scale drug trafficking tend to wear expensive gold jewelry as visible proof they have been successful in their past drug-trafficking ventures, as evidence that drug-trafficking ventures they propose will also be successful, and as evidence that they are criminals of consequence who it would be unwise to betray.”