Emma Coronel Aispuro became a brunette again last week for her cup shot.
The glamorous wife of the beauty queen of Mexico’s most notorious drug dealer last appeared in public as a blonde, her hair falling down next to her bareback in a glamorous, white lace wedding dress she modeled for Mexican designer Benito Santos on Instagram . In another photo, she is modeling a hip-pressing, sparkling purple gown.
But as she prepares to tackle high-ranking Sinaloa cartels, including her own step-sons, Coronel Aispuro is forced to get a more sober look in dull prison grounds, her irritating lips free of red lipstick.
“She’s definitely working together,” a federal law enforcement source told The Post, adding that Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s wife is a likely candidate for witness protection.
“Emma wants to get away from the violence and has always wanted to live in the US,” the source said. She was born in California and has dual US / Mexican citizenship.
Coronel Aispuro, 31, changed her mind to authorities in Washington earlier this week and faces more than ten years in prison if convicted on drug trafficking charges. She is also accused of helping Guzman, 63, out of a Mexican prison in 2015 with maximum security and helping plan another escape before being extradited to the U.S. in 2017, according to court documents.
The leggy brunette, who loves flashy designer clothes, was a match during the trial of her husband in federal court in Brooklyn. At the time, The Post exclusively reported that she was under federal investigation because she helped manage the cartel that is now at the forefront. According to stepchildren Ovidio Guzman Lopez (30), Ivan Archivaldo Guzman (37), Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar (34) and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, whose age is unknown.
Along the way, the former journalism student and aspiring model has amassed nearly 600,000 Instagram followers. She posted glossy photos of herself in low blouses and diamond earrings with chandelier, and shares Instagram stories about her luxury vacation in Venice shortly after Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in July 2019 in a maximum security of the federal prison in Colorado. There were videos of gondola rides and dinners overlooking the canals. One video showed two glasses of white wine in an outdoor restaurant, but it was not clear if she was up to date.
Previous photos uploaded to social media sites during her trial of her husband showed the brunette in skinny bikinis on windy beaches. Others combined her in skinny jeans with stilettos and Prada handbags, amidst a fleet of sports cars. These photos and video stories have since been removed.
Following the trial, Coronel Aispuro also registered the trademark “El Chapo Guzman” to hawk a range of garments, phone cases and hats, according to public records.
Although it is unclear whether the commercial venture will continue, Coronel Aispuro has retained many of her fans. Shortly after the news of her arrest on Monday, many of the fans on social media left heart emojis next to photos of Coronel Aispuro in a tight black leather jacket, a gold crown on her head and with enhanced red lips.
Her followers expressed shock that ‘la Reinita’ – the little queen – who also hosted a guest appearance on VH1’s ‘Cartel Crew’ two years ago, has been arrested. “Is it true that Emma’s in jail?” asked one of her Instagram fans. “Free the queen,” wrote another.
Coronel Aispuro, the mother of 9-year-old twin girls Emali Guadalupe and Maria Joaquina, is represented by a team of attorneys led by Manhattan attorney Jeffrey Lichtman, who also defended her husband.
“His lawyer was already standing in line before boarding a plane to surrender,” the source told The Post. “Her top priority is to protect her children and stay in the US.”
She has long denied knowledge of her husband’s drug business. But an FBI agent who discussed more than 100 members of the Sinaloa cartel said in court documents that ‘Coronel was aware of the shipment of cocaine with multiple tons, heroin production with a large quantity, marijuana shipments of tons and more. amounts of methamphetamine. ‘ After a visit to her husband in Mexican prisons, she conveyed messages to his trusted deputies, court documents read.
During Guzman’s trial in Brooklyn, Damaso Lopez Nunez, the drug lord’s longtime lieutenant, testified that El Chapo quickly contacted him after he was captured by Mexican marines in February 2014. Lopez said his boss asked him to ‘meet the mother of the twins’. referring to Coronel.
Coronel Aispuro was born in July 1989 near San Francisco, but grew up in a remote area in northwestern Mexico, surrounded by pine forests. Her father, Ines Coronel Barrera, was a cattle farmer in the region and a dreaded drug lord who worked for Guzman. The daughter met Guzman when she was still a teenager, and a participant in a beauty pageant during the Coffee and Guava Festival in the town of Canelas in 2007.
Guzman, then 50, immediately descended on her, though marriage was widely seen as a way to bolster Ines Coronel Barreras’ position within Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel. Barreras was convicted in 2017 on charges of arms and marijuana trafficking and is currently serving a ten-year sentence in Mexico.
Since Guzman’s extradition to the United States, the Sinaloa cartel has been dominated by the eldest of his 15 children, known as ‘Los Chapitos’. In 2019, their turf war with rival drug gang, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, became particularly brutal, resulting in more than 2,000 deaths. In October of the same year, when Mexican authorities captured Ovidio Guzman Lopez – known as El Raton or ‘the mouse’, the threat of violence was deemed so high that they let him go.
Lichtman declined to comment when contacted by The Post.