Miami- María del Luján Telpuk descended on Miami beneath a cascade of camera lights and questions.

Journalists from three countries pounced on the 27-year-old bombshell as she arrived from South America on Sunday morning. Looking dainty and fresh after her eight hour flight, she posed for photographers, gave a pair of live telephone interviews, and said little about her role in a legal case that could shame two presidents.

Telpuk is known as the ”suitcase girl” in her native Argentina. She is in Miami to testify in federal court about the alleged coverup of an international scandal that involves the United States, Argentina, Venezuela, and a suitcase full of $800,000 in unexplained cash.

The case has transformed the one-time nursery school teacher into a Playboy pinup, and, evidenced by her loving embrace of the cameras at Miami International Airport, she is clearly savoring her 15 minutes of fame.

”The truth is I still don’t totally understand” the turn her life has taken, Telpuk told The Miami Herald as she walked to the car waiting to whisk her away to an undisclosed hotel. “It’s been very shocking for me, though it’s brought many new and good things.”

Telpuk was an unknown Buenos Aires airport police officer in August 2007 when a Cessna Citation jet arrived carrying a group of Argentine and Venezuelan government officials and businessmen, including Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a Key Biscayne resident. When she asked the portly Venezuelan businessman to open the suitcase he carried, she discovered neatly stacked rectangles of $50 bills. She says Antonini told her it was ”about $60,000,” but it turned out to be much more.

U.S. prosecutors say the $800,000 inside was intended as a gift from leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to the presidential campaign in Argentina of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, an ally. They also say that the Venezuelan government enlisted five men to hush up Antonini, including Antonini’s countryman and former friend, Franklin Duran. Telpuk is here to testify in Duran’s case, which is currently under way in a downtown Miami courtroom.

Both Fernández de Kirchner and Chávez have called the prosecution’s case ”garbage.” Political experts following the case say it is driven by the strained politics between the United States and Venezuela.

Still, the case has become a sensation in Latin America and a huge embarrassment to the Chávez government.

As for Telpuk, it’s made her a celebrity, inspired her to enlarge her breasts, and ultimately landed her on the cover of both Argentine and Venezuelan Playboy magazines holding a suitcase full of cash under the headline ”Corruption Laid Bare.” She quit her airport police job and signed on to train for an Argentine take-off of Dancing with the Stars — only this one is called ”Skating for a Dream,” and it is on ice.

”I never imagined anything like this would happen,” she told Argentine Playboy in February. “And all for a suitcase that somehow put me into the middle of a rivalry of nations.”

After six months rehearsing for her on-ice television debut, she was suddenly demoted to be an alternate on the country’s top-rated show. Argentine publications have asked her if she believes it was because of government pressure, but she declined to speculate.

”I can’t say that,” she said to the Argentine magazine Perfil. “They didn’t say anything like that to me.”

She brought her ice skates — tucked into a hot pink bag — with her to Miami, on the off chance that she might get to practice while she’s in town.

”I really love it,” she said. “I brought them just in case.”

Many of the Argentine government’s supporters believe that ”Valijagate,” or ”Suitcase-gate,” as the scandal has come to be called in Argentina, is a Central Intelligence Agency operation designed to embarrass both the Argentine and Venezuelan governments — and that Telpuk is part of it. This small-town girl received death threats after her role in the case came to light, and she was briefly under police protection.

She told reporters in Miami that she still worries about her safety, even here.

”The fear is always there,” said Telpuk. With the multiple legal cases demanding her attention — she is also currently testifying in an Argentine case about the mysterious suitcase full of cash — she says she won’t comment for now on the events that unfolded at the Buenos Aires airport.

”I’m at peace because I know I’m here to tell the truth,” she said during her brief interview at MIA.

Telpuk was called by Duran’s defense lawyer to testify in the trial. Prosecutors accuse Duran of operating as an illegal foreign agent because he did not register with the U.S. government when he came to Miami.

Duran’s lawyer, Ed Shohat, tried to introduce evidence that the U.S. government’s case was politically motivated, but the judge did not allow him to use that defense in the trial.

Telpuk’s testimony in the Argentine investigation contradicts several elements of Antonini’s testimony in the Miami trial. She told Argentine authorities Antonini said the suitcase was his when she asked him, while he insists that he told her it was not. He says he was simply helping other passengers move their luggage to a waiting car.

Telpuk also says Antonini was alone when she inspected his bag; he says another passenger was there.

Whatever the outcome of the legal cases, Telpuk hopes to take some time to simply enjoy her visit to Miami — and perhaps pursue a few career opportunities while she is here.

”It’s a bit difficult to think about those things now, but like any woman . . . I’d like to have work possibilities,” she said. “I won’t lie, I would really like it.”