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"La Peregrina," the pearl, diamond and ruby necklace owned by Elizabeth Taylor on display during a preview of The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor at Christie's in New York on Dec. 1.

MIAMI – If there’s any woman in the world envied for her jewels and exceptional beauty, it’s Elizabeth Taylor. And this week the world was reminded of her wealth, her power and her ability to get the best out of men, including love and gems.

Christie’s sold a 55-carat pearl known as “La Peregrina,” a tear-shaped gem that Richard Burton gave Taylor in early 1969, for $11.8 million at auction on Tuesday evening.

By the time Burton bought it, “La Peregrina” had already spent centuries traveling from the hands of a slave to Spain, France and the United States in an intense bidding war between Spain’s Royals, France’s emperor’s family and America’s millionaires.

“It has become the most expensive pearl ever sold at auction,” Rahul Kadakia, head of Christie’s New York Jewelry Department, told Telemundo News.

From Spanish royalty to Napoleon
La Peregrina was discovered in the early 1500s by an African slave at the Pearl Islands in the Gulf of Panama. Its name means “rare,” or “special,” and it was offered to King Phillip II of Spain, becoming part of the crown jewels of the Spanish Crown.

At the time it was valued at 714,000 maravedí, a gold and silver coin currency brought to Spain by the Moorish Almoravids, which would be the equivalent of $8,000 U.S. dollars today.

La Peregrina was inherited by Phillip III of Spain and it passed from generation to generation of Spain’s royals.  But in 1808, when Jose Napoleon was named king of Spain by his brother Emperor Napoleon, the jewels of the Spanish Crown fell into his hands, and La Peregrina was one of them.

Jose Napoleon stole them all and gave La Peregrina to his wife, Julie Clary, who proudly showed it until the day the marriage ended. Napoleon then took the jewel with him to the United States, where he lived in New York City and Philadelphia.

Napoleon bequeathed the jewel onto Napoleon III, the ruler of the second French empire, who, after his deposition in 1815 - and later arrest in France - was sent to England were he sold La Peregrina to James Hamilton, later the Duke of Abercorn.

The Duke bought the pearl for his wife, Louisa Hamilton, the Duchess of Abercorn, who lost it twice because the heavy jewel fell out of its necklace’s setting, but on both occasions the pearl was recovered.

According to Christie’s records, La Peregrina remained in the hands of the Abercorn until 1914.

Fast-forward to 1969, when it showed up at auction in Sotheby’s. Richard Burton and Taylor, who had married for the first time five years earlier, were both still enjoying the success of their movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf,” which Taylor won her second Academy Award for. 

Burton, evidently still in love during that first marriage (the pair later divorced in 1974, remarried 16 months later in 1976 and divorced again), went to Parke-Bernet galleries, one of the largest auctioneers of fine art in the U.S, on Jan. 23, 1969. The auctioneer had already acquired by the rare pearl from Sotheby’s, and Burton wanted it for his bride.

But Burton had a strong opponent to bid against: Alfonso de Borbón Dampierre, an envoy of the Spanish royal family whose mission was to get the jewel back to Madrid´s Royal Palace.

Despite Dampierre´s credentials, he was outbid by Burton, who offered $17,000 over what the royal family was ready to offer and took it home at the final price of $37,000.

An unexpected thief
Burton gave it to his wife on Valentine´s Day, and as had happened a century before, one day the pearl went missing from the couples´ suite at Caesar´s Palace in Las Vegas.

“I reached down to touch La Peregrina and it wasn’t there,” Elizabeth Taylor wrote in her book “Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry.”

“I glanced over at Richard and thank God he wasn’t looking at me, and I went into the bedroom and threw myself on the bed, buried my head into the pillow and screamed. Very slowly and very carefully, I retraced all my steps in the bedroom. I took my slippers off, took my socks off, and got down on my hands and knees, looking everywhere for the pearl. Nothing.”

And then, she thought not her husband but someone else in the suite may have it.

“I just casually opened the puppy’s mouth and inside his mouth was the most perfect pearl in the world. It was – thank God - not scratched.”

Perfect and not scratched it was, indeed. And today, after years traveling from one continent to another, from slave, to kings, to emperors and millionaires, it lives in the hand of an unknown bidder who at $11.8 million has bought not only a pearl, but history in the shape of a tear.  
 

Read this story in Spanish from Telemundo

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Courtesy Telemundo / Courtesy Telemundo

Screen grab of a video clip from shortly after the Colombia volcano eruption in 1985 that shows a boy at an orphanage being treated by paramedics. Claudia Ramirez is sure it's her son Andres Felipe Cubides Ramirez.

By Maribel Osorio, Telemundo Correspondent

BOGOTA, Colombia – Most people thought Andres Felipe Cubides Ramirez died 26 years ago in a devastating volcano. That is except for his mother, Claudia Ramirez, who said her heart told her the boy was still alive even though she had no proof.

There has been no trace of Andres Felipe since Nov. 13, 1985, when the volcano erupted, destroying her town of Armero, Colombia.   

That day, as she watched via television from the capital Bogota, Claudia saw how the lava buried her parents, husband, friends and neighbors, 20,000 of the town’s nearly 30,000 residents died. Her town, Armero, was the city worst-affected by the eruption and was buried by mud and rubble from the eruption. There was no reason to believe little Andres Felipe, then 6 years old, didn't also perish.

At the time, Claudia was a 21-year-old student studying dentistry at the university in Bogota, 50 miles away from Armero; her parents took care of Andres Felipe while she was at school. 

She intensely looked for him all over the country during the first year after the tragedy and posted missing child photos of him all over Colombia. But everything seemed to indicate that he had died along with thousands of others.

For more than two decades, Claudia refused to watch the images from the scene that were like a dagger to her heart. But as fate would have it, a few weeks ago she was watching TV and saw a show all about the anniversary of the volcanic eruption – that’s when she saw the video clip that she's sure shows her son.  

In the clip from shortly after the volcanic eruption, a boy is at an orphanage being treated by paramedics, drinking water and trembling from the cold but without injuries. Claudia contacted the TV producers and watched the video again at the TV station. She now has no doubts that it is her son and showed photos of him around that age to make her point.

Courtesy Telemundo / Courtesy Telemundo

A photo of the missing boy Andres Felipe Cubides Ramirez. He would now be 32 years old.

Claudia still doesn't have an answer from the institute that coordinated adoptions from the tragedy. But she's convinced that Andres Felipe was adopted by someone abroad, because that was what happened to many children who survived.

Since she does not know what country he may be in, she has begun an Internet crusade to find him. This is the Facebook page she set up with photos of her son as a boy.  

During a recent interview she showed photos of his youth and, between tears, she recalled how his grandmother bought him three Spider-man costumes because after a Halloween party he decided he never wanted to wear anything else.

She now hopes that the old photos of her Andres-Felipe will help identify her grown-up son, who would be about to turn 32.

Anyone with information about Andres Felipe is urged to contact the Armando Armero Foundation at: fundacion@armandoarmero.com.

Reuters

Police and members of a forensic team stand around the 35 bodies abandoned on a road on the outskirts of Veracruz on Tuesday.

By Julio Vaqueiro, Telemundo Correspondent

MEXICO CITY – The scene was shocking. Masked gunmen blocked a busy road in the once-quiet port city of Veracruz, abandoning two trucks with 35 bodies inside, near a big shopping center. It was Tuesday at 5 p.m., broad daylight.

People on the streets watched the corpses being left at an underpass. Some of the victims had their hands tied and showed signs of having been tortured. The picture could have been extracted from a horror movie.

According to Veracruz state Attorney General, Reynaldo Escobar, 23 of the victims were men and 12 were women. “We have never seen a situation like this before,” said Escobar.

His words resounded across the country: Mexico is becoming the country of “never befores.”

Never before had we seen so many corpses dumped together on a busy avenue in a tourist port. Never before had we seen 52 people being killed inside a casino in the city of Monterrey until a group of criminals burned the place on Aug. 25. Never before had we seen a car bomb explosion in a Mexican city until it happened on July 2010 in Ciudad Juarez. Never before had panic gripped fans during a shooting near a soccer match until it happened in Torreon, Coahuila state. Within seconds of the first pops of gunfire, people ducked under their seats for cover, then thousands rushed onto the field, seeking escape, some carrying children.

But we have seen all of that now, and the new problem seems to be that we are running out of “never befores.”

‘Lack of governability’
More than 36,000 people have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on Mexican drug cartels in December 2006, according to figures released by the Mexican government in January 2011. But many put the number closer to 40,000, and the deaths include suspected drug gang members, security forces and innocent bystanders.   

Criminal organizations have thrived here for decades, smuggling narcotics north into the United States. The cost to the Mexican people, though, has never been this high. The public brutality of the killings has terrorized whole communities.

Narco culture permeates Mexico and is leaking across the border into the U.S. Click on the photo above to see a complete slideshow about Mexico's narco culture.

“These crimes occurring during day light prove the lack of governability we’re living in,” said security analyst José Reveles. “You shouldn’t be able to drive two trucks full of corpses around the streets of Veracruz. But these criminals did.”

Many feel let down by the authorities. Corruption is rampant, and the presence of the army and federal police in the country’s drug hot spots seems to have only created an upsurge in violence.

In many cases, authorities say it is just a matter of criminals killing criminals, and they rarely investigate the murders; however, the situation is much more complicated than that. It is true that among the 35 bodies found in Veracruz, many had criminal records, but it is also true that one of the victims was a police officer, and two of them were under 18 years old.

Furthermore, every one of the 35 men and women dumped there, and every one of the tens of thousands killed during this war, has left behind a family in grief.

Many of the victims’ relatives have given up hope of finding justice. Many Mexicans who have witnessed the violence on the streets live in fear and in silence. Some never even report the deaths of loved ones to the authorities out of fear of retribution.

‘Enough is enough’
Poet Javier Sicilia is a leader in the fight against the rampant drug violence. The killing of his 24-year-old son, Juan Francisco, in an episode blamed on drug gangs during March of this year, has made him the loudest voice condemning the bloodshed that has ravaged parts of Mexico. He has given a face and a name to the victims and their relatives. Now they are expressing their anger and giving a more transparent picture of the damage these atrocities have had on Mexican society.

“I’m a moral voice – I have to do this out of my moral convictions, because people have asked me to do it,” Sicilia has told the media more than once. Thousands have followed him in four different marches across the country with the rallying cry “enough is enough.”

The massacre in Veracruz is only the latest in an ongoing stream of horrors.Just as the 35 bodies were dumped in the tourist zone in Veracruz, Calderon unveiled a new TV program to try to lure tourists back to the country. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

“It’s between ridiculous and pathetic to see President Calderon taking his time to go around the country’s beauty in the times we’re living in,” journalist Carmen Aristegui told Telemundo. “It’s black humor.”

The images from the travel television program – a happy president climbing Mayan pyramids, and more – clash with the pictures of the half-naked bodies on Veracruz’s road. Just as the country Mexicans actually want to live in clashes with the reality of it.