El Chapo’s Wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, Arrested On International Drug Trafficking Charges

On Monday, the wife of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera was arrested on charges of involvement in international drug trafficking.

Emma Coronel Aispuro was taken into custody at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and charged with conspiracy to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin, five kilograms or more of cocaine, 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana and 500 grams or more of methamphetamines for unlawful importation into the country, according to the Justice Department.

“There is probable cause to believe that, from at least in or about 2014 and at least on or about January 19, 2017, Coronel did knowingly, intentionally and willfully conspired with Guzmán an others” to distribute drugs, according to a criminal complaint.

The complaint said that the FBI believed that Coronel took messages from her husband to his lieutenants, associates and sons while he was in a Mexican prison.

Coronel is a dual citizen of Mexico and the U.S. and is expected to make her first court appearance Tuesday in Washington D.C. via video conference.

Prosecutors said that Coronel conspired with others to assist her husband in his 2015 escape from a Mexican prison. He was later re-arrested in January 2016 in Mexico. It was alleged that his wife was planning to extract him from prison again before he was transferred to a U.S. prison in 2017.

In 2019, Guzmán was sentenced to life in federal prison plus 30 years for heading a global drug empire for decades.

When he was brought to New York to await his trial, the security surrounding the drug lord was so tight that the Brooklyn Bridge was shut down each week for his passage from a federal detention center to a courthouse in Brooklyn.

During the trial, Guzmán was only allowed to be in contact with his legal team, his sister and his twin daughters. He was not allowed to meet with his wife, but Coronel was always present at her husband’s trial.