WASHINGTON (AP) – The wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman was arrested on Monday at an airport in Virginia on charges of international drug trafficking, the Justice Department said, explaining in detail how she helped the daring escape. from her husband from Mexico prison.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, was arrested at Dulles International Airport and is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Tuesday.
She is charged in a single charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the U.S. The Department of Justice also accuses her of helping her husband escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and taking part in the planning of a second prison. escaped before Guzman was extradited to the US in January 2017.
Coronel Aispuro remained in custody and it was not immediately clear if she had a lawyer to comment on the charges.
As Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, Guzman escaped through an entrance under the shower in his cell to a mile-long (1-mile) illuminated tunnel with a motorcycle on rails. Planning for the escape was extensive, prosecutors say, with his wife playing a key role.
According to court documents, Coronel Aispuro teamed up with Guzman’s sons and a witness, who is now working with the US government, to organize the construction of the underground tunnel Guzman used to escape from Altiplano prison in Mexico to prevent He was to be extradited to the U.S. The plot included the purchase of a piece of land near the prison, firearms and an armored truck, and smuggling a GPS watch to him so they could “ find out his exact whereabouts to navigate the tunnel. building with an access point that was accessible to him ‘. say.
Guzman was sentenced to life behind bars in 2019. His Sinaloa cartel was responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States during his 25-year reign, prosecutors said in recent court documents. They also said his “army of sicarios” or “hitmen” was ordered to abduct, torture and kill anyone who stood in his way.
Coronel Aispuro, a former teen beauty queen, regularly attended Guzman’s trial, even when testimonials cast her in a harsh light. The two, aged over 30, have been together since at least 2007 and share twin daughters, who were born in 2011.
Her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was arrested in 2013 with one of his sons and several other men in a warehouse with hundreds of pounds of marijuana across the Douglas, Arizona border. Months earlier, the US Treasury Department had announced financial sanctions against Coronel Barreras for his alleged drug trafficking.
After Guzman was arrested again after his escape, Coronel Aispuro lobbied the Mexican government to improve conditions in the prison. And after he was convicted in 2019, she moved to launch a clothing line in his name.
Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.