Emma Coronel, the wife of the infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, has been released from a US jail.
Emma Coronel is a free woman: Here’s everything we know
Coronel had previously pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was initially sentenced to three years in jail in November 2021, but her sentence was later reduced.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has confirmed her release, and it is reported that the 34-year-old left a halfway house in California, where she had been moved from federal prison in June 2023.
Notably, her husband, El Chapo Guzmán, is currently serving a life sentence in a supermax jail in Colorado, making any potential reunion a complex legal process.
El Chapo Guzmán, 66, was found guilty in 2019 of leading the Sinaloa cartel, a Mexico-based transnational criminal organisation responsible for smuggling enormous quantities of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, and heroin into the US.
The cartel was notorious for its violence, including kidnappings, torture, and murders to consolidate its power. It also maintained a network of corrupt officials and politicians to facilitate its operations.
How Emmar Coronel met and fell in love with El Chapo
Emma Coronel first met Guzmán when she was 17 and competing in a local beauty pageant.
Her father, Inés Coronel, was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel and is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Mexico for drug smuggling.
Guzmán had been running the cartel from various hideouts in northern Mexico after his spectacular escape from prison in 2001, during which he used a tunnel and a laundry cart.
Coronel and Guzmán formalised their relationship in a ceremony when she was 18, though it’s unclear if it was officially registered with Mexican authorities.
Coronel’s dual US-Mexican nationality allowed her to give birth to the couple’s twin daughters in California in 2011, granting them US citizenship.
Guzmán’s criminal escapades continued, including a daring escape through a tunnel in 2015, before being captured again. He was later extradited to the US, where he was tried and found guilty.
Throughout her husband’s trial, Coronel appeared regularly in the Brooklyn courtroom, where she maintained her husband’s innocence and described him as an “excellent father, friend, brother, son, partner.”
Will Coronel reunite with El Chapo?
Coronel herself was arrested in February 2021 at Dulles Airport near Washington DC. Prosecutors accused her of being deeply involved in her husband’s criminal activities, including drug trafficking and money laundering.
She pleaded guilty and was initially sentenced to three years in jail.
As her sentence was reduced, questions arose about her future plans. Her husband’s plea for her to be allowed to visit him in prison suggests that she may travel to Colorado to see him.
In his letter, Guzmán mentioned their two daughters, who are currently studying in Mexico and can only visit their father during holidays, two or three times a year at most.