The wife of infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been arrested and charged with drug trafficking.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, who won teenage beauty contests before marrying Guzman in 2007, is facing charges related to international trafficking of drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
Aispuro was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Monday and has been accused of participating in conspiracy to distribute drugs, which would then be imported into the US.
Her husband, Joaquin Guzman, 63, is currently serving a life sentence in prison in Mexico after spending several years as Mexico’s most-wanted drug trafficking leader.
He was sentenced in 2019 after a trial that lasted two years and for which Aispuro was present as a key witness.
According to prosecutors, Aispuro was aware her husband was the leader of the Sinaloa cartel and even helped to pass on messages from Guzman when he went to prison.
She is believed to have relayed messages from her husband while he was hiding between 2012 and 2014 and later from prison when she visited Guzman after his arrest in 2014.
Aispuro was then allegedly involved in helping him to escape from Altiplano prison in July 2015, when he attempted to leave the compound via an underground tunnel that had been planned for months.
Along with Guzman’s sons and another person, a plot of land was purchased by the family near the prison, which provided an entry point to dig a tunnel through to Guzman — who was being tracked by a GPS watch smuggled into the prison.
The final part of the illicit plan involved reaching Guzman and exiting the prison through the tunnel on a motorbike.
Aispuro appeared virtually before a court judge in Washington D.C. on Tuesday. The arrest of Joaquin Guzman’s wife sparked many reactions on social media.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox decided to share his thoughts on the story by posting a tweet where he took a shot at Mexico’s current leader, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Fox wrote: “Don’t worry Emma, the president will come to the rescue !! The US detains Emma Coronel, wife of ‘El Chapo,’ for drug trafficking.”
Emma Coronel Aispuro and her infamous husband are separated in age by more than 30 years and share twin daughters who were born in 2011.
She was efficient with the way she presented herself and her family on social media. It is being said that one of her husband’s former associates threw her under the bus to get a reduced sentence.
