Jenni Rivera Family Bans Fans From Visiting Singer's Grave

The family of Jenni Rivera has banned the iconic singer's fans from visiting her grave at the All Souls Cemetary in Long Beach, Calif., El Universal reported.

According to Fox News Latino, the Mexican daily reported Rivera's family members currently in the process of creating a custom gravestone to be placed where she was buried. The special epitaph will tell the life story of "La Diva de la Banda."

"Many people come here to visit Jenni's tomb, but because it has no name many people don't know where she is," an employee at the cemetery told El Universal, Fox News Latino reported.

"The space which was bought for Jenni costs approximately $100,000 and fits about eight people," the source, who asked to remain anonymous, added.

"It is something special which the family is obviously trying to protect."

The cemetery has barred interested reporters, and fans hoping to pay their respects to their hero from seeing Rivera even a month after her burial.

"Many have come to visit her," the insider continued. "Some of them recognize [the grave] because they are told that is where she allegedly is. Their only intentions are to come pray and pay tribute to their idol."

Fans arrive with gifts in hand, wanting to leave flowers and other tokens as offerings of respect at Rivera's gravestone, according to El Universal. However, admirers can only get so close before security halts them.

"It is understandable that the family does not want for us to be near the grave, but Jenni was of the people and the people want to see where she rests in peace," Carmen López, a resident of Long Island, told the daily, Fox News Latino reported.

"I knew where her tomb was because one of her cousins told me," she added. "Security did not tell me anything. We just went by to pay our respects to our Diva."

Rivera, four of her staff, and two pilots were killed when the small private Learjet plummeted from 28,000 feet and crashed into a mountainous area 9,000 feet above sea level, according to Mexico's transportation secretary. The jet was flying them from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey to the central city of Toluca. 

According to CNN, the cause of the crash is under investigation. The accident report will not be ready for nine months to a year, the secretary of communications and transportation said.

The DEA recently announced that it is currently investigating Starwood Management, the company that owns the luxury jet that crashed and killed Rivera and her crew. The agency seized two of its planes earlier this year as part of the ongoing probe, reported The Huffington Post.

"The DEA has subpoenaed all the company's records, including any correspondence it has had with a former Tijuana mayor who U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected has ties to organized crime," the Post noted.

The man who runs the business, 50-year-old Christian Esquino "has a long and checkered legal past," but he told the Associated Press he's been dogged by the DEA since the 1980s after he sold a plane in Florida to a prominent drug trafficker who eventually used the craft as part of a huge smuggling operation.

"Rivera was well-established as a musical powerhouse with her Spanish-language performances of regional Mexican corridos, or ballads," noted USA Today following her death. "For fans, the [Diva de la Banda] nickname captured her powerful voice and the personal strength many admired," said the newspaper.

After dominating Latin charts for years, many saw Rivera as poised to take on the English-language market. Rivera sold 15 million records, according to Billboard, and recently won two Billboard Music Awards, including favorite Mexican music female artist.

The Banda Music singer was nominated for various Latin Grammy Awards in 2002, 2008 and 2011. In October, People en Español named her to its list of the 25 most powerful women.