The Mexican drug lord, known as El Chapo – ‘Shorty’ – allegedly first met the elegant teenage daughter of one of his lieutenants during a dance in the small town. Smitten later offered him a lavish bash to support her bid to become a beauty pageant.
She was just 18 – and more than three decades his junior – when they married in 2007 in the city of La Angostura, deep in the Sierra Madre and in the heart of the so-called Golden Triangle of heroin production in Mexico.
Years later, adorned in designer attire and heels, she was a paparazzi-pleasing daily presence as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman stood trial in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn as the leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
US authorities arrested Emma Coronel Aispuro on Monday at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, claiming she was more than the loyal and fashion-conscious woman of the world’s most notorious drug addict.
Some of the allegations her husband, Coronel, a citizen of both the U.S. and Mexico, received are facing charges of participating in a broad-based conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the United States.
After Guzman was captured in Mexico, according to an FBI statement, his wife acted as an ‘intermediary and messenger’ and passed on his orders to his lieutenants and his four sons, all of whom are allegedly high-ranking cartel members.
U.S. authorities claim she helped with his sensational escape from prison in 2015, when Guzmán fell into a hole that washed out under the shower in his Mexican cell and jumped on a motorcycle that took him through a mile-long tunnel to freedom. tossed.
Coronel allegedly met with Guzmán’s son to discuss the plan, which included buying land and a warehouse near the jail, as well as firearms and an armored truck, according to an FBI statement.
Guzmán was captured six months later in the Pacific city of Los Mochis, Mexico.
The FBI said his wife later helped organize a second escape scheme for which a Guzmán ally received about $ 1 million – and told a “cooperating witness” that a senior prison official was paid $ 2 million to help. The prison chief has not been identified.
But that plan never came to fruition. Guzmán was extradited to the United States in January 2017.
A U.S. district court judge in New York sentenced Guzmán to life in prison in July 2019 after a jury found him guilty of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.
Prosecutors also sought an order demanding that Guzman hand over more than $ 12.6 billion in assets – their approach to his drug earnings over the decades. His lawyers called the request ridiculous, saying he had nothing to do with it.
With her husband and American supervision, Coronel was a regular poster on Instagram and occasionally a visitor to the United States.
While Guzmán and his lawyers were preparing for trial in New York in September 2018, photos appeared on Instagram showing a birthday party Coronel held for the couple’s twin daughters, who were born in 2011 at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster. .
The decadent bash has carnival rides, hundreds of pink balloons and a set with gold chandeliers and a rose-colored throne.
Coronel wore 4-inch heels and posed in front of a fake pink mansion and a long table covered with flowers, desserts and a large birthday cake.
The following year, while Guzmán, 64, was awaiting sentencing, Coronel said on Instagram that she was launching a fashion series inspired by her husband’s style. His statue – square jaw, beaded eyes, black mustache – is affixed to ball caps, T-shirts and posters in Mexico, especially in his home state of Sinaloa, where many consider him a hero and a Robin Hood figure who helped the poor has.
In court, Coronel was a spectacle and enigma. She spent almost every day of her husband’s trial in the second row of the gallery, quiet but impossible to miss.
By opening the statements, the couple had no direct contact for two years. Her plea to be able to hug him once before the trial began was still denied.
Guzmán would look for her from the moment he was led into the courtroom every day. The couple regularly waved and flew, sometimes to the dismay of U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan.
When she brought their twins to court, Guzmán could not tear his eyes from them. Coronel regularly spoke to her husband’s lawyers about his ties, his expression, his health.
Although she rarely spoke to the press, she never got scared outside the court of the cameras. Her chic outfits – designer jeans, sky-high stilettos, military jackets and velvet bodysuits – received a lot of attention, and she was determined about her make-up. But the suspicion hangs over her.
Her uncle, Ignacio Coronel – the so-called King of Crystal for his part in smuggling methamphetamines to the United States – was shot dead in 2010 by the Mexican army. He is apparently number three in the Sinaloa cartel hierarchy. Authorities allege that Coronel’s father, currently locked up in Mexico, “coordinated drug transportation” for the Sinaloa cartel.
During the trial, many speculated that she was more involved in her husband’s business transactions than she was in. She was required to go through the metal detector twice before a sensitive witness was brought to testify, out of concern that she might smuggle in a cell phone to take his photo.
As the weeks wore on, it was impossible for Coronel to hide her boredom. She rummaged in her seat and played with her long hair, and she was scolded for using her lawyer’s phone in the courtroom.
Her arrest resonates on social media, especially in Mexico, where many tongue-in-cheek suggestions that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador would help bring her back to Mexico – as in the case of a former Mexican defense chief arrested in Los Angeles. last year due to alleged drug trafficking.
“Do not worry Emma,” former president Vicente Fox wrote on Twitter. “The president will come to the rescue !!”
McDonnell reports from Mexico City and Sharp from Los Angeles. Times writers Kate Linthicum in Mexico City, Tracy Wilkinson in Washington and special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez in Mexico City also contributed to this report.