The Justice Department also accused her of helping her husband escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and participating in the planning of a second prison escape before Guzman was extradited to the U.S.Ĭoronel was moved to the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia late Monday night and is expected to appear by video conference for her initial court appearance on Tuesday. In a single-count criminal complaint, Coronel was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the U.S. When Guzmán’s son Ovidio was arrested in October 2019, cartel gunmen overran the city of Culiacán and forced state security forces to release him.And now his wife, with whom he has two young daughters, has been charged with helping him run his criminal empire. It’s something many old school traffickers used to live by, but more recent generations appear to have mostly forgotten all about.”ĭespite his incarceration, Guzmán still casts a long shadow in Mexico, and the Sinaloa cartel, now partly led by his sons, remains a formidable force. “If you want to stay out of prison, standing out isn’t the way to go. “Bragging can be dangerous and time and again those exposing themselves too much and too publicly make themselves targets,” Ernst said. She even briefly appeared on a US reality TV show. She launched a line of clothing – with some of the items emblazoned with El Chapo’s familiar moustachioed face – and attempted to establish herself up as a social media influencer with a carefully curated Instagram feed. While – like many older narco bosses – El Chapo kept a low profile despite his fame, his wife sought the spotlight. The couple have nine-year-old twin daughters. She was 17 at the time, and Guzmán was 51. She grew up in the “Golden Triangle” of Mexico’s Sierra Madre, and reportedly met Guzmán at a local festival. US anti-drug agents worked closely on El Chapo’s arrests in Mexico, where he long evaded the law and became a sort of antihero in his home state of Sinaloa and beyond.Įmma Coronel was born in Santa Clara, California and is the daughter of Ines Coronel Barreras, a medium-ranking lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel. “In part, this appears to send a message from the US, which says that their traditional tools of arresting high level actors and trying them in the US is not yet a thing of the past yet – even after Cienfuegos” “The timing of this arrest is interesting,” said Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst at the International Crisis Group. ![]() The country’s congress also approved laws limiting the actions of the DEA in Mexico – a move US officials warned would cripple cross-border cooperation on security issues. López Obrador’s government successfully petitioned for his return, having accused the United States of acting without their knowledge and failing to act like an ally. Mexican prosecutors recently declined to pursue charges against the former defence secretary Gen Salvador Cienfuegos, who was arrested upon landing in Los Angeles last October and accused of protecting a drug cartel. Her arrest is likely to further complicate relations between the administrations of Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and comes as security cooperation between Mexico and the United States appears to have cooled. Throughout the trial, Coronel attended court every day, even when evidence included text messages between her husband and one of his mistresses.īefore her husband’s sentencing, she told a sympathetic TV interviewer that Guzmán was a “humble” man and complained that the media had made El Chapo “too famous”. Guzmán was sentenced to life plus 30 years at his trial in New York in 2019.
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