Emma Coronel, Wife of El Chapo Guzmán, Set Free from Prison

Emma Coronel, the wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, has been released from jail in the US. She had pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to three years in prison in November 2021, but has been granted early release. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has confirmed her release. It is believed that Coronel, who is 34 years old, left a halfway house in California, where she had been transferred from federal prison in June. Her husband, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, is serving a life sentence in a supermax jail in Oregon. In a handwritten letter sent last month, he requested that his wife and their two daughters be allowed to visit him in the maximum security prison. Guzmán, now 66, was found guilty in 2019 of running the Sinaloa cartel, a Mexico-based criminal organization. According to US law enforcement officials, the Sinaloa cartel has smuggled over 1,000 tonnes of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, and heroin, into the US. The cartel is known to consolidate its power through kidnapping, torture, and murder of rival gang members. Additionally, it has bribed police officers and high-ranking politicians in Mexico and across Central America to facilitate its drug shipments and receive warnings about raids. Emma Coronel first met Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán when she was 17 years old and participating 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 different hideouts in northern Mexico after his escape from prison in a laundry cart in 2001. Their relationship was formalized in a ceremony when Coronel turned 18, although it is not known if their marriage was officially registered with Mexican authorities. In 2011, Coronel, who holds dual US-Mexican nationality, traveled to California to give birth to their twin daughters, granting them US citizenship. In 2014, Guzmán was arrested after a 13-year manhunt and sent to the Altiplano maximum security jail in Mexico. However, he managed to escape again after just 17 months, using a motorcycle on rails that led to a nearby warehouse. During Coronel's trial, prosecutors accused her of playing a crucial role in her husband's escape. She was also accused of acting as a messenger for Guzmán, relaying orders to his cartel associates and his sons from previous marriages, known as the "Chapitos" (Little Chapos), both during his time on the run and behind bars. Guzmán successfully evaded capture for six months before being apprehended by Mexican special forces outside Los Mochis, his hometown in Sinaloa. He was extradited to the US a year later and put on trial in New York. Throughout Guzmán's trial, Coronel appeared in the Brooklyn courtroom every day. Immaculately dressed and well-groomed, she smiled and waved to him from the public gallery. In an interview with The New York Times, she stated that she did not recognize the gruesome testimony about her husband in court, instead describing him as "an excellent father, friend, brother, son, partner." When Guzmán was found guilty in February 2019, the couple exchanged thumbs-up gestures. Coronel remained free for nearly two years after her husband's conviction until her arrest at Dulles airport near Washington DC in February 2021. Prosecutors claimed that 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. During her sentencing, Coronel pleaded for leniency, emphasizing the importance of her presence in her children's lives. She was initially sentenced to three years in jail, but her sentence was subsequently reduced, leading to her early release. Although her future plans are uncertain, Guzmán's letter pleading for her to be allowed to visit him suggests that she may travel to Oregon to see him. In the letter, Guzmán mentions that their twin daughters, now 12 years old, are studying in Mexico and can only visit him during holidays, two or three times a year at most.