Emma Coronel, wife of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, faced her sentence in the United States, after voluntarily surrendering herself to the US authorities on February 22 and pleading guilty to crimes related to drug trafficking and money laundering.
Hours before the trial, it was revealed that United States prosecutors were seeking that Emma Coronel was sentenced to 48 months in prison on the grounds that she was a cog in the Sinaloa Cartel. Nevertheless, the sentence was shorter (36 months), from which the nine months that he has already been in jail will be taken into account. That is, Guzmán Loera’s wife could be released in January 2024 or before having good behavior.
According to the United States government, Emma Coronel Aispuro conspired “Knowingly and intentionally” in drug trafficking from 2011 to January 19, 2017. Likewise, the prosecutor in the case, Anthony Nardozzi, pointed out that the wife of ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán collaborated in the trafficking of more than 450 kilograms of cocaine, 90 kilograms of heroin, 45 kilograms of methamphetamine and 90 tons of marijuana.
In addition to drug trafficking, Emma has also been accused of “knowingly” carry out money laundering operations of profits from drug trafficking, as well as “Get involved in property transactions and agreements“By Guzmán Loera, identified as a” major drug trafficker. “
That is, Colonel was found guilty of conspire to distribute drugs in the United States, from launder money and of violate the Law on the Designation of Foreigner Narcotics Capos, also known as the “Ley Kingpin”.
Prior to the trial held on Tuesday, November 30, versions had circulated that ‘El Chapo’s wife had turned herself in to the United States justice to cooperate and seek to reduce her sentence; However, it was his lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman who denied this information, assuring that it was all a “seeding” that even endangered the lives of his daughters.
According to Univisión, the minor daughters of the drug trafficker would not be safe from a possible revenge of the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Guzmán Loera’s children, if Emma Coronel provided information to the US authorities. “The family is worried. Emma is worried, ”he assured.
“She has some girls in Mexico and it is very well known what happens to cooperators, to cooperators’ families. So why risk the lives of your girls, the lives of your family? When there are other resources that can help her and allow her to go out (free) at the same time as if she had cooperated ”Lichtman noted.
According to Coronel’s defense, federal agents are responsible for filtering such claims. “False” with the aim of pressuring his client to cooperate or destroying any cooperation that she was doing. In either case, Lichtman said, they put her and her nine-year-old daughters’ lives at risk.
For its part, the Department of Justice, so far, did not confirm whether Emma Coronel was in communication with her agents with the aim of becoming a protected witness.
Emma Coronel Aispuro He was born in Santa Clara, California, but grew up in the La Angostura ranchería, a place with just a few dozen inhabitants in the northern region of Mexico known as the “Golden Triangle” of drug trafficking.
In an interview with journalist Anabel Hernández, published in the weekly Proceso in 2016, Coronel pointed out that “You don’t see anything extravagant there, things you see in the city that are so stressful. It is a very quiet life “.
