The wife of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman was arrested in the U.S. on international drug trafficking charges.
What We Know:
- 31-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro was arrested on Monday at the Virginia Dulles International Airport. According to Complex, Aispuro was taken into custody and charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana in the U.S. She is scheduled to appear in federal court next Tuesday.
- Aside from the conspiracy to distribute drugs, the Justice Department had also accused Aispuro of helping her husband escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and another attempt to help him escape from a different prison in 2017 before he was extradited to the United States.
- Back in 2015, Aispuro worked with El Chapo’s four sons to construct an underground tunnel for the kingpin to escape. Using a hidden opening under the shower in his cell, El Chapo slipped away on a motorcycle down a mile-long underground hallway leading him out of prison. The detailed plan included buying land aside from the prison, smuggling El Chapo a GPS, and purchasing multiple guns and an armored truck.
- NPR reports that Aispuro’s father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was a member of El Chapo’s drug smuggling group known as the Sinaloa Cartel. Eventually, Aispuro developed a relationship with Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord, and the two married in 2007 when she was just 18 years old. The couple now has two twin daughters together.
El Chapo was the head of the Sinaloa cartel for over 25 years and is now serving a life sentence in the U.S. after being charged with multiple smuggling offenses.
