Emma Coronel, wife of drug kingpin El Chapo, has officially been released from prison after pulling the “I had no idea my husband was running a global drug empire” card.
I guess she swore heaven and earth she had no clue about the billion-dollar cocaine empire happening under her nose. Apparently, you can live with a drug lord and still believe your man is out there selling essential oils.
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.
El Chapo Guzmán, 66, was found guilty in 2019 of running the Sinaloa cartel.
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.
Emma Coronel first met Guzmán when she was 17 years old and competing in a local beauty pageant.
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.
At her trial, prosecutors said Coronel had played a key role in her husband’s escape.
She was also accused of having acted as a messenger for her husband both during his time on the run and behind bars, relaying orders to his cartel lieutenants and to his sons with his previous wives, who are known as the Chapitos (Little Chapos).
Coronel remained free for almost another two years until her arrest at Dulles airport, near Washington DC, in February 2021.
Prosecutors said she was well aware of her husband’s criminal activities and “understood the scope of the Sinaloa cartel’s drug trafficking”.
She pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering.
At her sentencing, Coronel asked for leniency for the sake of her children. “I beg you to not allow them to grow up without the presence of a mother,” she told the judge.
She was sentenced to three years in jail which were subsequently reduced, paving the way for today’s release.
Moral of the story? Deny, slay, and walk away. Emma did not come to play—she came for her freedom!
