Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of the notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday, on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.
She had faced a minimum of 10 years in prison and prosecutors had asked for four years. Since she had no criminal record and was not considered a leader in the organization, nor was she directly involved in any violent acts, she received a lighter sentence.
The judge also ordered her to pay $1.5 million (€1.3 million) in a restitution deal agreed before the hearing. She will also be given credit for nine months already spent behind bars since her arrest.
The 32-year-old was arrested in February at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and has behind bars since then. As part of her sentencing, she will also serve four years of supervised release after the prison sentence.
“I express my true regrets for any and all harm that I may have done,” Coronel Aispuro said in Spanish before the sentence was announced. “I am suffering as a result of the pain that I caused my family.”
She asked for a sentence that would allow her to watch her 9-year-old twin daughters grow up. Pronouncing the sentence, Judge Rudolph Contreras wished Coronel good luck. “I hope that you raise your twins in a different environment than you’ve experienced to date” he told her.
Coronel Aispuro helped El Chapo escape prison
Defense attorneys argued that she was a 17-year-old from an impoverished family when she met Guzman and married him on her 18th birthday.
“This began when she was a very impressionable minor married to a powerful man more than three decades older,” Jeffrey Lichtman said.
While both the prosecution and defense argued that she as not involved in the core business of Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel, she was still instrumental in his dramatic escape out of a prison in Mexico in 2015.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Jailbreak
The leader of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera, nicknamed “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) due to his short stature, was first arrested in 1993 in Guatemala. He was extradited to Mexico and sentenced to 20 years in jail for murder and drug trafficking. In January 2001, he escaped from Mexico’s Puente Grande maximum-security prison, reportedly in a laundry cart.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
The shower to freedom
“El Chapo” remained at large until 2014. The world’s most-wanted drug lord was finally captured in the Mexican city of Mazatlan. But in 2015 he escaped again, through a tunnel dug in the shower room of the Altiplano prison in Almoloya de Juarez. Security camera footage showed the moment he went into the shower cubicle before disappearing.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
An elaborate plan
The drug boss’s escape took him along a 1.5-kilometer-long (nearly 1-mile-long) tunnel dug beneath the shower cubicle. At the end of it was a motorcycle rigged on a special rail system with two metal carts in front of it. The Sinaloa cartel had already perfected the art of underground construction work. Such passageways take months to build and cost millions.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Exit strategy
“El Chapo” escaped through this trapdoor. The exit was concealed in a half-built house. But his freedom was shortlived. The narcissistic cartel boss appeared to have fallen victim to his own legend.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Arrested again
The Mexican drug boss was recaptured just six months later after a shootout between his bodyguards and marines in Los Mochis in Sinaloa state. He may have contributed to his downfall by giving an interview to Hollywood actor Sean Penn. The Mexican foreign ministry agreed to extradite him to the United States in May 2016.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Maximum security
Guzman was transported to court in the United States under maximum security. In February 2019, he was found guilty on all charges, including murder, drug trafficking and participating in a money laundering conspiracy. US judges sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 30 years.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Bizarre ‘El Chapo’ cult
Over the years, a cult has built up around the famously slippery drug lord. There is a musical subgenre that celebrates Mexican cartel bosses, and Guzman has dozens of “narcocorridos,” or drug ballads, dedicated to him. You can also buy “El Chapo” T-shirts and caps, as well as other merchandise.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Code 701
In 2009, Forbes ranked “El Chapo” as the 701st richest person in the world, estimating his net worth to be more than $1 billion (€850 million). Many fan articles linked to the drug lord therefore bear the number 701.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Tasteless branding
You can buy Tequila bottles or even COVID-19 face masks with “El Chapo” branding. Few seem concerned by the fact that Joaquin Guzmán was responsible for a bloody drug war, which has claimed more than 150,000 lives since 2006. One brand line is registered by Guzman’s daughter.
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El Chapo’s former safehouse raffled off in national lottery
Raffle to win safe house
A safe house that once belonged to “El Chapo” is being raffled off in a state-run lottery. The two-bed home with its beige-tiled kitchen is unremarkable — except for its hydraulic bathtub. That concealed the entrance to a network of escape tunnels.
Author: Claudia Dehn
Prosecutors said Coronel Aispuro smuggled a GPS watch to him disguised as a food item, which helped those digging the tunnel pinpoint his location and reach him.
She also smuggled Guzman’s messages to his subordinates while he was in prison, which allowed him to stay in control of the Sinaloa cartel while behind bars.
jcg/rt (EFE, AP AFP, Reuters)
Wife of drug king ‘El Chapo’ sentenced to prison
Source:
Pinoy Pop News
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