Tatiana Marset Alba walked out of a cell at Santa Cruz's Palmasola prison and, within days, turned up crowned queen of one of the oldest groups in the Santa Cruz de la Sierra Carnival. That's how fast the turnaround happened: the all-female "comparsa" — best explained in English as a social club, carnival krewe, or dance troupe that parades together during festivals — Las Tremendas named her its new sovereign for the 2027 edition of the festival — sister, as she is, of the accused Uruguayan drug-trafficker, Sebastian Marset, behind the so-called Primer Cartel Uruguayo. The announcement first circulated in a homemade video filmed with the group's members, which Bolivian outlets picked up this week.
From a cell to a crown
It all happened just days after the 22-year-old regained her freedom following nearly five months in pretrial detention. According to Infobae, Marset left Palmasola on the night of Wednesday, August 19, to begin house arrest: confined overnight, from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., under police watch, with a permanent escort during the day. She'll be staying at her lawyer's home in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, from where she plans to resume the law degree she had put on hold in Uruguay, Montevideo Portal reported.
What actually held up her release
Pinning the delay solely on a police escort that never showed up tells only part of the story. The real sticking point, El Deber documented in early August, was lining up two personal guarantors — each needing steady employment, a verifiable address and financial solvency — a condition set on July 21 alongside the switch from pretrial detention to house arrest. Her attorney, Mónica Terrazas, called that search for guarantors the main obstacle for nearly three weeks. Only once that requirement was cleared, in mid-August, did the final snag emerge: prison administrators were slow to assign the officer needed to enforce the measure, pushing the actual release back to the night of August 19, Montevideo Portal reported.
Almost instant spotlight
Marset wasted little time getting back in the public eye. Even before being unveiled as comparsa queen, she had already appeared in an ad campaign for a Santa Cruz beauty salon, according to Sociales.com.bo — a move that drew mixed reactions online given how quickly she resumed public life while the case against her remains open. In the clip announcing her as queen, she thanked the group and pledged to stand with it through February's Carnival festivities.
A Bolivian case that isn't closing
Bolivia's Attorney General's Office is still pursuing charges against Marset on two counts: criminal association, and separately, illegal possession or trafficking of firearms, on the theory that she assisted her brother's security operation. She denies it. Per Infobae, her defense maintains she was simply passing through Bolivia when she was picked up alongside Sebastián on March 13, during the same raid that led to the trafficker's capture in Santa Cruz's Las Palmas neighborhood. Months before her release, she had recorded a video from behind bars complaining about her treatment: "they don't treat me the way I deserve," she said, blaming it on her last name, according to Red Uno.
Sebastián Marset, on the other side of the case file
While his sister reclaims the spotlight in Santa Cruz society pages, the trafficker himself remains in US custody, having been flown to the country the same day he was arrested and handed to American drug agents. He's held pretrial at a detention facility in Alexandria, Virginia — one that much of Bolivian media brands maximum-security; ABC Color, citing the facility's own classification, instead describes it as a medium-security jail run by the local sheriff's office, meant primarily for detainees still awaiting trial.
That trial is set to open January 11, 2027, before a jury, after Marset pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, La Nación reported. The federal indictment, expanded last June, no longer stops at money laundering: per the breakdown published by ABC Color, Marset now faces four counts — conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism; conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute aboard a vessel subject to US jurisdiction; conspiracy to launder money; and a separate money-laundering count. The first of those is the most serious, carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Marset has also been named — though not formally charged — as one of the suspected masterminds behind the killing of Paraguayan anti-drug prosecutor Marcelo Pecci, shot dead in May 2022 on a beach near Cartagena, Colombia, while on his honeymoon. That link, La Nación noted, still hasn't produced concrete charges despite repeated public accusations from Paraguayan and Colombian officials.
A surname that won't stay out of the spotlight
Tatiana Marset's sudden leap from a jail cell to a Carnival crown has reignited debate in Bolivia over how much media space the relatives of organized-crime figures deserve. And that's how Las Tremendas heads into Carnival 2027: with a new queen whose family name, far from staying out of view, ended up dominating much of this week's conversation in Santa Cruz.
