El Chapo’s wife arrested in Virginia
The wife of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, a former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested Monday February 22 in the United States. She is accused of drug trafficking.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, who has dual Mexican and US citizenship, was arrested at Dulles International Airport, in Virginia, as reported by the US Department of Justice in a statement.
According to the court documents in the case, Coronel is accused of participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana, and importing it to the United States.
In addition, she is accused of having helped “El Chapo” escape on July 11, 2015 from the Mexican prison in which he was imprisoned.
The US authorities also claim that after “El Chapo” was arrested again in Mexico in January 2016, Coronel helped plan another prison break for her husband, before he was extradited to the US in January of 2017.
In July 2019, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was sentenced in the US to life imprisonment and an additional 30 years as the leader of a cartel that shipped tons of drugs to that country.
The criminal complaint filed against Coronel maintains that between 2012 and 2014 “she transmitted messages on behalf of Guzmán to promote drug trafficking activities, while Guzmán tried to avoid capture by Mexican authorities.”
“Once Guzmán was arrested in February 2014, Coronel continued to deliver messages that she received from Guzmán during his visits to the prison, which were not monitored by the Mexican authorities,” adds the document signed by Eric Mcguire, special agent of the FBI.
During the trial of “El Chapo,” his former henchman, Dámaso López “El Licenciado,” testified that Coronel participated in the planning of Guzmán's cinematic escape from El Altiplano prison in July 2015, through a 1.5 km long tunnel.
López also maintained that, after the capture of “El Chapo” in January 2016, Coronel participated in the planning of another prison escape of the head of the Sinaloa cartel, which never materialized because he was finally extradited to the United States.
Coronel was present for most of the trial against her husband and silently observed that testimony from López, who a few months earlier had been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking.
“El Chapo” was found guilty of the 10 charges among them, that of running a criminal organization - that he faced in his trial, considered the largest in US history for drug trafficking, and sentenced to life imprisonment for his work as leader of the dreaded Sinaloa cartel.
“My wife to this day has not been allowed to visit me. I have not been allowed to hug my daughters. It has been a 24-hour emotional, psychological and mental torture. It is the most inhuman thing that has happened to me in my life,” protested “El Chapo” in the hearing where his conviction announced and in which he was not allowed to approach Coronel.
From beauty queen to third wife of “El Chapo”
Coronel was born in California, USA, but grew up in the La Angostura ranch, a place with just a few dozen inhabitants in the northern region of Mexico known as “the Golden Triangle” of drug trafficking where the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango converge.
Despite the fact that she assures that her family dedicated themselves to agriculture, both her father and her two brothers were sentenced to prison in recent years for being linked to activities of Guzmán’s cartel.
Coronel, who was crowned a beauty queen in local pageants, met Guzmán when she was just 17 years old.
“I say that what conquered me about him was his talk, his way of treating me ... He did not bring me great gifts or great things, but he wins people over by his way of being," she said in an interview with the weekly Process in 2016 after being asked about the age difference between them.
The day she turned 18, they were married in the church and Coronel thus became the third wife of the drug dealer.
The young woman studied journalism at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa and in 2011 she gave birth to twins María Joaquina and Emaly Guadalupe, the result of her relationship with Guzmán.
Their relationship lasted for more than a decade, despite the fact that Guzmán lived most of those years as a fugitive from justice and imprisoned in both Mexico and the United States.