The wife of notorious Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera has been on drug trafficking charges.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, was taken into custody on Monday, February 22, at Dulles International Airport. She is scheduled to make her appearance in federal court soon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia via video conference.
Aispuro is charged in a one-count criminal complaint with a 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 U.S., the Department of Justice said in a news release.
She also allegedly helped Guzman Loera escape from a Mexican prison in 2015, the department said.
After Guzman was re-arrested in Mexico in January 2016, she was also said to have engaged in planning yet another prison escape, before he was eventually extradited to the U.S. in January 2017.
Mike Vigil, a former DEA agent who worked undercover in Mexico, told DailyMail.com that Coronel was ‘a narco princess’ deeply enmeshed in the world of trafficking.
‘She was not a distributor, or a money launderer, or involved in logistics,’ said Vigil. ‘But she did things he ordered him to, like passing messages.
‘So did she participate? Yes.
‘But these charges are related to things that she did in the past. It’s not like she’s branching out on her own.’
Guzman Loera was convicted in 2019 on 10 charges of engaging in a continual criminal enterprise and multiple counts of distributing tons of cocaine into the United States. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.
