Narcos: Mexico may. ADX has never had an escape since it opened in 1994. El Chapo is expected to live the rest of his life behind bars, but as Hamilton details, the War on. FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2019 file photo, Emma Coronel Aispuro, center, wife of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, leaves federal court in New York. The wife of Mexican drug kingpin and escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been arrested on international drug trafficking charges at an airport in Virginia. Mexico to Close Prison Infamous for Narco Parties, ‘El Chapo’ Escape. MEXICO / 30 SEP 2020 BY PARKER ASMANN. EN. COLOMBIA / 20 NOV 2020. WASHINGTON (AP) — The wife of Mexican drug kingpin and escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was arrested on Monday at an airport in Virginia on international drug trafficking charges. Infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who daringly escaped prison on July 11, utilized a tunnel leading from the only “supermax” maximum-security pri.
The wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the imprisoned former leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested on Monday over her alleged involvement in international drug trafficking, the US Department of Justice said.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, a regular attendee at her husband’s trial two years ago, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia, and is expected to appear in a federal court in Washington on Tuesday.
A lawyer for Coronel could not immediately be identified. It was unclear why Coronel, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was in the Washington area.
El Chapo Escape 2018
Coronel’s arrest came two years after a celebrated trial in Brooklyn where Guzman, now 63, was convicted of trafficking tons of drugs into the United States as Sinaloa’s leader, where prosecutors said he amassed power through murders and wars with rival cartels.
He was sentenced in July 2019 to life in prison plus 30 years, which the sentencing judge said reflected Guzman’s “overwhelmingly evil” actions. Guzman was sent to ADX Florence in Colorado, the nation’s most secure “Supermax” prison.
Coronel was charged in a one-count complaint with conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines for unlawful importation into the United States.
Prosecutors said Coronel also conspired to aid her husband in his July 2015 escape from the Altiplano prison in Mexico, when he dug a mile-long tunnel from his cell, and began plotting a second escape following his capture by Mexican authorities in January 2016.
U.S. and Mexican efforts to fight drug trafficking had become strained when the Justice Department brought drug charges in October against former Mexican Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos.
The Justice Department unexpectedly dropped that case the following month and let Cienfuegos return to Mexico, in a bid to restore trust in the countries’ security ties.
Cienfuegos was exonerated two months later when Mexico dropped its own case.
Tomas Guevara, an investigator in security issues at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, said Coronel’s arrest might be part of a “pressure strategy” to prompt cooperation from Guzman.
A Mexican official familiar with Coronel’s case, who asked not to be identified, said her arrest appeared to be solely a U.S. initiative, and that Coronel was not wanted in Mexico.
NEWSEL CHAPO/ 23 FEB 2021 BY PARKER ASMANNEN
The indictment of the wife of convicted Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera has revealed her alleged role in the organization, ranging from her husband’s messenger to coordinating his spectacular jailbreaks, yet seemingly always one step removed from the drug trafficking itself.
Federal prosecutors have charged Emma Coronel Aispuro, the 31-year-old third wife of Guzmán Loera, with one count of international drug conspiracy, according to a February 22 news release from the US Justice Department. Coronel, a dual US-Mexican citizen who grew up in the northern state of Sinaloa, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
From about 2014 through the beginning of 2019, Coronel conspired with her husband and his Sinaloa Cartel associates to import cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into the United States, prosecutors said in the criminal complaint.
SEE ALSO:Mexico News and Profiles
Coronel is also alleged to have assisted El Chapo in his 2015 movie-like escape from the maximum security Altiplano prison through an elaborate, mile-long tunnel equipped with lighting, ventilation and a motorcycle. And she was allegedly planning her husband’s next prison break before he was extradited to the United States in 2017.
At her initial court appearance February 23, Coronel was remanded and will remain jailed in Virginia. If convicted, she faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life, plus a fine of up to $10 million.
Coronel’s arrest comes just two years after a US jury found El Chapo guilty in February 2019 of charges ranging from drug trafficking to running a criminal enterprise. He was later sentenced to life in prison, which he is serving at the maximum security prison known as ADX Florence in Colorado, nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”
InSight Crime Analysis
The accusations against Coronel portray her as more of a go-between than an international drug trafficker intimately involved in the Sinaloa Cartel’s daily operations.
It’s one of many often overlooked roles women have played in drug trafficking organizations, where they have at times emerged as high-profile traffickers like Colombia’s Griselda Blanco or Marllory Chacón Rossell, known as Guatemala’s “Queen of the South.”
The criminal complaint paints Coronel as a low-key but knowledgeable Sinaloa Cartel insider, which could prove useful to US authorities in other cases against cartel members.
Special Agent Eric McGuire of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in the criminal complaint that Coronel “understood the scope of the Sinaloa Cartel’s drug trafficking” and was “aware of multi-ton” drug shipments sent to the United States.
But it appears Coronel remained largely removed from El Chapo’s drug trafficking activities.
El Chapo Guzman 2020
Prosecutors accuse her of conspiring to traffic just one kilogram of heroin, five kilograms of cocaine, one ton of marijuana and 500 grams of methamphetamine. For context, US agents seized more than 1,000 kilograms of methamphetamine linked to the Sinaloa Cartel in just one October 2020 bust in California. Prosecutors also did not link her to any specific shipments.
SEE ALSO:Leadership Role of Women Often Overlooked in Mexico’s Organized Crime Landscape
Coronel seemingly being a step away from the drug trafficking itself was probably deliberate. It meant she could more easily serve as her husband’s messenger, especially when he was jailed or on the lam.
Coronel relayed messages on behalf of El Chapo as he was on the run from both Mexican and US authorities, as well as following his arrests in 2014 and 2016, according to the criminal complaint. She acted “as a go-between and messenger between [El Chapo] and his lieutenants, associates, and sons,” prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors say her importance grew after El Chapo’s second arrest in 2014. El Chapo used Coronel to tell his sons to purchase firearms, an armored truck and a warehouse near the prison to facilitate his eventual 2015 escape, according to testimony from a cooperating witness.
She also allegedly made payments totaling around $1 million to the same witness in an attempt to help her husband escape prison a third time after his final capture in 2016.
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