The wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was arrested in the United States on Monday. She is accused of helping her husband lead his multi-billion dollar cartel and plans his daring escape from a Mexican prison in 2015.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, a 31-year-old former beauty queen, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and is expected to appear before federal court in Washington on Tuesday. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico.
The Alexandrian Sheriff’s Office
Her arrest is the latest turn in the bloody multinational saga involving Guzman, the longtime head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzman, whose two dramatic escapes from Mexico prison led to a legend that he and his family were virtually untouchable, was extradited to the United States in 2017 and is in prison for life.
Now his wife, with whom he has two young daughters, has been accused of helping run his criminal empire. In a single charge, Coronel was charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the US. jailbreak before Guzman was extradited to the US.
Coronel’s attorney Jeffrey Lichtman declined to comment on Monday evening.
Drew Angerer / Getty Images
As Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, Guzman led a cartel responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during his 25-year reign, prosecutors said in recent court documents. They also said his “army of sicarios” or “hitmen” was ordered to abduct, torture and kill anyone who stood in his way.
His breaks in prison became legendary and raised serious questions about whether the Mexican legal system could hold him accountable. In one instance, he escaped through an entrance under the shower in his cell to a mile-long illuminated tunnel with a motorcycle on rails. Planning for the escape was extensive, prosecutors say, with his wife playing a key role.
According to court documents, Coronel worked with Guzman’s sons and a witness, who is now working with the US government, to organize the construction of the underground tunnel that Guzman used to escape from Altiplano prison to prevent his extradition to the US. appearance. a piece of land near the prison, firearms and an armored truck and smuggled him a GPS watch so they could “pinpoint his exact whereabouts to build the tunnel with an access point accessible to him,” court papers say .
Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in 2019.
US law enforcement through AP
Coronel, who was a beauty queen in her teens, regularly attended Guzman’s trial, even when her testimony involved her during his breaks in prison. The two, separated in age by more than 30 years, have been together since at least 2007 and their twin daughters were born in 2011.
Her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was arrested in 2013 with one of his sons and several other men in a warehouse with hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the Douglas, Arizona border. Months earlier, the US Treasury Department had announced financial sanctions against her father for his alleged drug trafficking.
After Guzman was arrested again after his escape, Coronel lobbied the Mexican government to improve her husband’s prison conditions. And after he was convicted in 2019, she moved to launch a clothing line in his name.
Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Coronel “has been involved in the drug trade since she was a little girl. She knows the inner workings of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
He said she could be willing to cooperate.
“She has tremendous motivation, and that’s her twin,” said Vigil.