Devotees say La Santa Muerte has helped them find love, find better jobs and launch careers.
"Criminals pray to La Santa Muerte to protect them from law enforcement, " Almonte said.
Recently, assailants smashed a life-size statue of La Santa Muerte in a South Texas cemetery.
Police in Pasadena, Calif. recently found human bones at a home with a Santa Muerte altar outside.
Desde el 2003, la gripe aviar ha ocasionado la muerte a 80 personas.
He also just formed a nonprofit to support the "New Orleans Chapel of the Santisima Muerte, " the official name of his public altar.
La muerte del general Augusto Pinochet el pasado 10 de diciembre ha generado sentimientos encontrados, tanto entre los chilenos como en la comunidad internacional .
Jude and La Virgen de Guadalupe as a favorite for miracle requests, even as the Catholic Church in Mexico denounces Santa Muerte as satanic, experts say.
"Her growth in the United States has been extraordinary, " said Andrew Chesnut, author of "Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint" and the Bishop Walter F.
Kiko Torres, owner of the Masks y Mas art store in Albuquerque, said sales of La Santa Muerte statues, incense, and oils have skyrocketed in recent months.
Gonzalez, who sports a tattoo of La Santa Muerte on her back, holds an annual event in August in the saint's honor, with mariachis and a feast.
U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte in West Texas said he has testified about La Santa Muerte in at least five drug trafficking cases where her image aided prosecutors with convictions.
Experienced horseback riders will be guided to the mountain peaks of the Cordillera de la Sal to descend across the dunes towards the Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death).
For decades, though, La Santa Muerte remained an underground figure in isolated regions of Mexico and served largely as an unofficial Catholic saint that women called upon to help with cheating spouses, Chesnut said.
For decades, though, La Santa Muerte remained an underground figure in isolated regions of Mexico and served largely as an unofficial Catholic saint that women called upon to help with cheating spouses, Chestnut said.
Reta's face became covered in tattoo markings. (Prosecutors say during his trial Reta used make-up to cover the facial markings.) And both sported tattoos of "Santa Muerte, " the Grim Reaper-like pseudo-saint worshipped by drug traffickers.
One such devotee is Steven Bragg, 36, who said he was introduced to La Santa Muerte in 2001 and began praying to her for a variety of different reasons, including a plea for a life companion.
It wasn't until 2001 when a devotee unveiled a public La Santa Muerte shrine in Mexico City that followers in greater numbers began to display their devotion for helping them with relationships and loved ones in prison.
Last year, Almonte testified that a Santa Muerte statue prayer card, found with a kilogram of methamphetamine in a couple's car in New Mexico, were "tools of the trade" for drug traffickers to protect them from law enforcement.
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