Mexican Drug Lord El Chapo Guzmán’s Wife Emma Coronel Released from Prison
Emma Coronel, the wife of jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been released from jail in the US.
She pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to three years in jail in November 2021, a sentence which was later reduced.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed her release.
It is believed the 34-year-old left a halfway house in California, where she was moved from federal prison in June.
Her husband is serving a life sentence in a supermax jail in Colorado.
Last month, he sent a handwritten letter requesting his wife and their two daughters be allowed to visit him in the maximum security prison.
The Mexico-based transnational criminal organisation is estimated by US law enforcement officials to have smuggled more than 1,000 tonnes of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines and heroin into the US.
The cartel’s hitmen kidnapped, tortured and killed members of rival gangs to consolidate its power.
The Sinaloa cartel also bribed police officers and high-ranking politicians in Mexico and across Central America to turn a blind eye to drug shipments or even tip the cartel off about impending raids.
Emma Coronel first met Guzmán when she was 17 years old and competing in a local beauty pageant.
Her father, Inés Coronel, was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel who is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Mexico for drug smuggling.
They formalised their relationship in a ceremony when Emma Coronel was 18 – although it is not clear if their marriage was ever officially registered with the Mexican authorities.
Coronel, who holds dual US-Mexican nationality, travelled to California in 2011 to give birth to the couple’s twin daughters, a move which means the children have US citizenship.
In 2014, Guzmán was arrested after a 13-year manhunt and sent to the Altiplano maximum security jail in Mexico.
It only took Guzmán 17 months to escape again, this time through a tunnel complete with ventilation shafts and a motorcycle on rails which led from his cell to a nearby warehouse.
Read more on BBC
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