El Chapo, the wife and the mistresses
Texts El Chapo sent wife and mistresses revealed at trial thanks to spyware he ordered installed on their phones, write Molly CraneNewman and Nancy Dillo.
He cyberstalked his wife and paramours out of romantic paranoia – and it backfired spectacularly. Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘‘El Chapo’’ Guzman sat quietly in a Brooklyn courtroom on Thursday as prosecutors introduced a treasure trove of highly damaging text messages he exchanged with his wife and mistresses on devices he personally ordered loaded with spyware.
The blockbuster texts might have been lost forever, but Guzman’s tech guru flipped and became a government informant.
When the turncoat techie told investigators about the FlexiSPY software Guzman was using, they retrieved the messages through a subpoena, FBI agent Stephen Marston testified.
The messages revealed everything from Guzman’s reliance on black moustache dye to his wife’s understanding of their risky drug trafficking lifestyle – and the singular love Guzman professed to mistress Augustina Cabanillas Acosta, who acted as one of his cartel capos.
Wife Emma Coronel Aispuro, 29, sat stone-faced as jurors heard the couple’s most intimate marital messages and how Guzman both paid for Cabanillas’ liposuction surgery and told the mistress, ‘‘You are the most important person to me. I love you.’’ In the texts between Coronel and Guzman shown to jurors, the married couple chatted lovingly about their twin daughters Emaly and Maria – born on August 15, 2011, and nicknamed Mali and Kiki.
‘‘I had to run out at 3 in the afternoon. I’ve been scratched up, but fine. Thank God . . . . I saw them pounding on the door next door, but I was able to jump out.’’
Joaquin ‘‘El Chapo’’ Guzman’s text to his wife
‘‘Our Kiki is fearless, I’m going to give her an AK-47 so she can hang with me,’’ Guzman texted Emma on the girls’ six-month birthday.
In another message, Coronel teased her husband, ‘‘Recently, I’ve been told Mali looks more like you – but she has a sweet disposition.’’ Guzman regularly referred to his wife as ‘‘my love,’’ ‘‘princess’’ and ‘‘mommy,’’ while Coronel addressed him as ‘‘Don Joaquin,’’ ‘‘Papi’’ and ‘‘Mr Joaquin.’’ During one thread, Coronel asked her husband if a group of men ‘‘killed just now’’ were his workers.
He calmly reassured her they were not.
Some of the most incriminating texts involved Guzman talking to Coronel about having to flee a Cabo San Lucas villa that was raided by US and Mexican authorities on February 22, 2012.
Prior trial testimony described the financial records, grenades and size 9 Nike shoes recovered at the location.
The place was raided about 3pm, and not long after, Guzman texted Coronel to describe his hair-raising escape and ask for a backup supply of black moustache dye.
‘‘I had to run out at 3 in the afternoon,’’ Guzman texted. ‘‘I’ve been scratched up, but fine. Thank God.’’ He said later in the thread it all happened ‘‘very fast.’’ ‘‘I saw them pounding on the door next door, but I was able to jump out,’’ he wrote to Coronel.
‘‘Oh, love. That’s horrible,’’ Coronel responded. ‘‘I’ll be watching the news to see what they say, love.’’ Guzman said that would be helpful because there was no television where he was hiding.
He said in addition to the moustache dye, he also needed two pairs of black shoes in a Mexican size 7, which Assistant US Attorney Michael Robotti said was the same as a US size 8.5.
In another series of messages, Guzman inquired about whether his wife had protection.
‘‘Do you have a gun?’’ he texted her.
‘‘Yes, I have one of yours,’’ she replied.
‘‘Put it in (the) hidden compartment, darling,’’ he instructed Coronel.
Guzman’s well-documented paranoia was on full display in the recovered messages read to jurors.
In various exchanges, he warned Coronel not to talk about their houses on the phone and informs her she’s being followed. ‘‘Love, whenever you see suspiciouslooking cars, let me know so I can get them checked out right away,’’ he texted. ‘‘They’re following you, darling. You just continue to lead a normal life. They just want to know if you come to where I am.’’
Guzman, 61, has pleaded not guilty to more than dozen charges in the drug trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy and illegal firearms case.
Coronel gave a rare on-camera interview to Telemundo last month in which she claimed to be a lawabiding businesswoman and described her husband as a caring family man.
The couple reportedly met at a party organised by her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, a cattle rancher and Sinaloa Cartel member.
Guzman was smitten and purportedly used his influence to ensure the 17-year-old pageant contestant won the crown at the Coffee and Guava Festival in the Mexican state of Durango in 2007. They married the week of Coronel’s 18th birthday.
Further testimony on Thursday revealed Coronel sometimes handed her phone to her father so he could text Guzman too. – NY Daily News