History's most dangerous female assassins: From the 'real-life Killing Eve' who killed 23 for Basque ETA terrorists and North Korean who killed 115 to the brutal Mexican warlord who murdered drugs rivals and police

Pictures revealed today by the Daily Mail show the seemingly unassuming American female tourist who led a secret double life as an alleged-assassin-for-hire.

Aimee Betro, 44, flew over from her native Milwaukee to kill boutique clothing store owner Sikander Ali on the orders of rival Mohammed Aslam, 56, and his son Mohammed Nazir, 30.

A trial in the UK heard how the hitwoman, who worked as an administrator for the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team, disguised herself in a hijab before trying to gun Ali down outside a house in Acocks Green, Birmingham on September 7, 2019.

But Betro is just one in a terrifying line-up of high-profile female assassins who are responsible for multiple deaths.

Idoia Lopez Riano: Psychopath with a penchant for luring police officers to bed  

Idoia Lopez Riano became the world’s most wanted female assassin in the 1980s while carrying out atrocities for Eta, the Basque separatist group.

A green-eyed femme fatalle, she was the inspiration for Villanelle, the hired assassin played by Jodie Comer in BBC drama Killing Eve.

In total, she killed 23, including 12 Civil Guards in one bomb attack. Finally caught in 1994, she was handed a 1,500-year jail sentence but later renounced terror and walked free in 2017, aged 52.

Idoia Lopez Riano became the world’s most wanted female assassin in the 1980s while carrying out atrocities for Eta, the Basque separatist group

A sadistic penchant for luring police officers to bed, before gunning down their colleagues, got the disco-loving, tousle-haired killer the nickname ‘La Tigresa’.

Like Villanelle, she often paused to admire her reflection before executing her next victim. The similarities with Comer’s character are obvious, with the show's writer Luke Jennings himself saying: ‘Riano was a psychopath and completely without empathy.’

As a youngster with piercing eyes and dark, tumbling hair, Riano was ‘just one of the girls’, says her cousin, Jose Antonio Lopez, adding: ‘She was pretty soft.’

That changed in 1980 when, through a boyfriend from the Basque town of Errenteria, the then 16-year-old Riano was recruited by Eta. She registered her first kill at the age of 20.

It was not long before her signature green eyes and curls of hair began to dominate newspaper reports and her face appeared on Wanted posters in bars across Spain. Her mother said: ‘She got involved with the wrong crowd. I can’t say why, it just happened.’

Riano is handcuffed after she arrives at the Madrid-Barajas airport on Wednesday May 9, 2001, after being extradited from France

Displaying a natural talent for terror, Riano became a lieutenant in Eta’s Madrid cell. In 1986, she played a key role in the bombing of the city’s Plaza Republica Dominicana which killed 12 Civil Guards, and in another car bomb attack that left five Guards dead.

After fleeing to Algeria for several years, she joined a notorious commando unit which carried out attacks in Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante and Murcia, achieving a near mythical reputation for ruthlessness.

However, in a remarkable twist – one that even the imaginative Villanelle might never have come up with – Riano’s mother claimed in 2020 that her daughter now works for the Red Cross. 

Speaking from her home in the tiny village of Villar de Ciervo near the Portuguese border, Mari Riano, said she’s ‘proud’ of her daughter who has been ‘turning things around’. 

She said: ‘She speaks three or four languages and is throwing herself into the work. Idoia is with the Red Cross in Barcelona. Everyone loves her there.’

Kim Hyun-hui: North Korean agent who killed 115 before defecting

Kim Hyun-hui in 2018

Kim Hyun-hui killed 115 as an agent for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, father of Kim Jong Un. 

The mother of two was involved in the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 from Baghdad to Seoul on 29 November 1987 - killing everyone on board. 

Kim was selected aged 18 to join the North Korea secret service due to her ability to speak several languages. After rigorous training she was given her first assignment aged 25.

She and her co-agent Kim Seung Il travelled to Austria pretending to be a Japanese couple on holiday.

They collected the bomb - a Panasonic radio packed with chemicals - in Vienna and transported it to Baghdad airport.

The plan was almost foiled when security guards assessed the device before their flight.

One took out the batteries which the bomb needed to explode and said Kim couldn't take them on board.

Kim has now been pardoned and works for South Korea's National Intelligence Service and is writing her memoirs to warn the world of the threat of North Korea.

Kim was involved in the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 from Baghdad to Seoul on 29 November 1987 - killing everyone on board

Maria Jiminez: Mexican cartel hitwoman who confessed to murdering 20 people 

Maria Jimenez, aka La Tosca, was paid $1,700 (£1,300) per month to carry out killings for the Los Zetas drug cartel.

Mexico's most prolific female assassin confessed to murdering 20 people, including rival drug traffickers and a police officer, and was convicted in 2012. 

Maria Jimenez was paid $1,700 (£1,300) per month to carry out killings for the Los Zetas drug cartel

She allegedly led a group of men, women and teenagers as Los Zetas battled their rivals in the Gulf Cartel for control of drug distribution and other criminal rackets.

Her arrest came days after 23 people were found hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped along the border city of Nuevo Laredo. 

Daria Trepova: Accused of bombing that targeted Putin critic 

Daria Trepova  in court this year 

Russian 26-year-old Daria Trepova was recently convicted of deliberately blowing up prominent Vladimir Putin propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, by handing him a bomb hidden in a statuette.

Prosecutors say she purposely passed the bomb to Tatarsky - whose real name was Maxim Fomin - in a St Petersburg cafe on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence.

Trepova insisted she believed the statuette of Tatarsky contained a listening device, and so is innocent of deliberate murder.

She claimed Ukraine believed she, too, would be killed - although, despite being close to the blast, she was unscathed and fled the scene before being detained.

'I was basically sent to my death with a bomb,' she said, referring to her Ukrainian handlers.

But state prosecutors rejected her version and she was sentenced to 27 years in prison. 

The explosion killed Tatarsky and wounded more than 50 in April last year.

In her final statement in a St Petersburg court, Trepova - who does not deny links to Ukrainian intelligence - said her conscience was clear.

The explosion killed Tatarsky and wounded more than 50 in April last year

'I am very pained and ashamed that my naivety and gullibility led to such catastrophic consequences,' she told victims and their relatives in court.

'I am very sorry for what you had to go through because of me.

'Such pain and such horror. I have already asked for forgiveness from the victims.

'One of them said: "God will forgive". I felt a little mockery in this.'

She continued: 'This hurt me because I consider myself a believer, and my state was calm, because I am sure that before God, at least, my conscience is clear.'

Trepova insisted she did not intend to kill Tatarsky and her supporters say she is being made a scapegoat to hide failings by Russian secret services.

Her lawyer Daniil Berman said Trepova 'did not know and could not have known what was inside the bust'.