El Chapo’s wife may plead guilty to helping run her husband’s empire
WASHINGTON: The wife of jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is expected to plead guilty on Thursday to helping her husband smuggle narcotics, a person familiar with the matter said. A guilty plea could help reduce her sentence.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, was arrested by US authorities at Dulles airport outside Washington in February. The former beauty queen was slapped with a charge of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana for smuggling into the US.
El Chapo was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficking groups. He ran an operation that delivered hundreds of tons of narcotics into the US and was behind multiple murders of those who crossed him, according to court filings.
He was extradited to the US in 2017 to stand trial and locked up in the highest security prison in Florence, Colorado.
According to the US justice department, Aispuro, a dual US-Mexico citizen and mother of twins, took part in cartel activities and assisted in two plots to help El Chapo escape from a Mexican prison.