How Emma Coronel’s life changed with “El Chapo” Guzmán behind bars

Then, suddenly, she became a figure on social media. There were rumors that she would launch a clothing line. Even an appearance on a reality show dedicated to the families of drug traffickers.

Coronel’s actions did not go unnoticed. After being arrested on Monday on charges of criminal association for the distribution of drugs, there were those who wondered if by assuming prominence she had become a target of the police forces.

Her demeanor attracted attention in part because she had led a relatively low-key life up to the point when she was part of a grueling trial that attracted international spotlight. But her actions violated the unwritten rules for family members, especially spouses, to lead a low-key life.

Until the trial, “Emma had remained anonymous like practically all the romantic partners of the Sinaloa cartel bosses,” said Adrián López, general director of the newspaper Noroeste de Sinaloa.

Then, “she begins to take a more celebrity attitude. I think this breaks a tradition of secrecy and a style within the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel in particular.”

This is an exclusive from Al Rojo Vivo. One of the daughters of “El Chapo” Guzmán spoke with Jorge Miramontes and said that the family feels the persecution by the DEA and Interpol.

At the end of last year, the Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández – who has written in depth about the Sinaloa cartel, including a book published in 2019 about the newspaper of Ismael’s son “El Mayo” Zambada, leader of the organization – assured that a source informed him that Coronel’s mother, Blanca Aispuro, was concerned about the direction her daughter’s life was taking.

Concern also increased among Guzmán and Zambada’s children, said Hernández, who was the first journalist to interview Emma Coronel.

“The mother is also worried that they could harm Emma, ​​some enemy cartel, as she was very loose, as she was very on the street, very in the clubs, very in a very unbridled social life,” Hernández said that he had informed its source.

“The mother was afraid that something like this could happen to her or that she could be the target of the government itself.”

The mother of the drug lord’s twin daughters is behind bars.

Guzmán had been married on several occasions; And as was made clear during his trial in New York, he was far from a faithful husband.

Sitting in court, Coronel listened to the testimony of a woman who detailed how she and Guzmán had dramatically escaped a Mexican Navy operation in one of their hideouts.

He described rushing out of bed, locating a secret hatch, and escaping through a drainage tunnel, following Guzmán, who was naked.

Marisset Verení spoke with Emma Coronel’s lawyer after the first hearing held on Tuesday.

Coronel appeared every day with a smile, blowing Guzmán kisses, but “actually what they tell me is that I was very, very angry and very hurt,” said Hernández.

“And so, when the trial concluded, what she decided is to take revenge and the way to take revenge is to make her husband see what he was missing.”

Coronel, 31, was born in San Francisco but grew up in the Durango mountain range that borders Sinaloa, a poor region known as the Golden Triangle.

Experts analyze the background of the arrest of Emma Coronel.

Coronel and Guzmán married in 2007, when she was 18 years old. He was 50 and one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world. “I don’t imagine that she really had many options to say no, I’m not marrying you,” Hernández declared.

For a time, Coronel’s father, Inés Coronel Barreras, was allegedly in charge of moving marijuana from the Sinaloa cartel to Arizona.

In 2013, he was arrested along with one of his sons and several other men in a warehouse where weapons and hundreds of kilograms of marijuana were also found in Agua Prieta, Sonora, bordering Douglas, Arizona.

It was during a party in 2007 in Durango.

For several years, the only public photograph of Emma Coronel was an image from 2007, when she was crowned the beauty queen at a festival in Canelas, the town where she grew up.

He wore a huge crown and smiled discreetly as he looked directly into the camera.

After her wedding, she disappeared from public life until 2011, when it was reported that she had given birth to her twin daughters in Los Angeles County.

He was born 31 years ago in San Francisco, United States.

On February 22, 2014, Coronel was with Guzmán and his daughters in the Pacific port of Mazatlán when the Navy arrested “El Chapo.”

Guzmán was sent to the Altiplano maximum security prison, outside Mexico City, while his lawyers fought against his extradition.

On July 11, 2015, Guzmán escaped through a nearly one-mile tunnel that was built directly into his cell shower.

If found guilty, she could face up to life in prison.

In January 2016, the Mexican Navy again captured Guzmán in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.

A month later, Coronel gave her first interview with Hernández, in which she repeatedly complained about the conditions in which her husband was detained.

Coronel told Hernández that she learned of Guzmán’s prison escape from television.

Here is the interview with the lawyer Mariel Colón, who also represented “El Chapo.”

“If I had known something, I would not have been able to sleep, or eat out of desperation or things like that, worried. I had no idea”.

Guzmán was eventually extradited to the United States, but not before Coronel was involved in planning a new escape attempt that never materialized, according to US prosecutors.

Coronel and her designer outfits drew attention during the “El Chapo” trial. Photographers scrambled to capture the moment of her arrival and departure from court.

She was arrested in the United States, accused of conspiring to bring drugs into this country.

On one occasion, she wore a velvet jacket the same burgundy color as the one she sent Guzmán to wear that day. Later she commissioned a court artist to recreate the show of solidarity; a memory.

Colonel entered the court with great confidence. She played with her hair as she awaited the start of the proceedings and chatted amiably with the reporters sitting behind her.

She carried sweet and savory cookies with her, and occasionally offered them to reporters.

Every morning, Guzmán looked for her in the audience when she entered the room. He smiled and greeted her.

One day in court, Coronel chatted and shared laughter with Mexican actor Alejandro Edda, who played Guzmán on the Netflix series “Narcos: México.”

In the sixth week of the trial, she took her 7-year-old daughters, dressed in blue jeans and white jackets; and their father clapped them softly, as if playing with them.

After Guzmán was convicted – sentenced to life in prison and an additional 30 years – Coronel published a statement thanking her husband’s lawyers, and her mother and sister for taking care of the twins while she went to trial.

She said the trial had been complicated. Her name had come up during the process: Dámaso López, one of Guzmán’s main operators, testified that she had met several times with Coronel and Guzmán’s sons to plan the escape of “El Chapo” from the Altiplano prison .

She also claimed that Coronel had delivered messages from her husband.

Colonel showed no remorse. “Of that I can only say that I have nothing to be ashamed of,” he wrote. “I’m not perfect, but I consider myself a good human being that I have never intentionally hurt anyone.”