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El Chapo's Wife Emma Coronel Pleads Guilty to Helping Run Global Drug Cartel

Emma Coronel is charged with conspiring to distribute drugs and launder money in aid of her husband's Sinaloa cartel

The wife of Mexico's most notorious drug lord, Joaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges she helped her husband run his multibillion-dollar drug empire and plothis tunnel escape from a top security Mexican prison.

Emma Coronel, 31, a U.S.-born former teenage beauty queen from a small mountain village in Mexico's Durango state, entered a guilty plea in a federal court in Washington to charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, conspiracy to launder money and engaging in unlawful financial transactions involving a designated narcotics-trafficking organization, the infamous Sinaloa cartel.She was arrestedat Dulles International Airport in Washington upon arrival on a flight from Mexico earlier this year.

Court documents indicate that a plea deal has been in the works since March. That month, prosecutors secretly filed a criminal information, a document that usually indicates a plea agreement has been reached. Those documents were unsealed this week in advance of Ms. Coronel's plea.

It isn't known whether Ms. Coronel is cooperating with federal authorities to provide information on her husband's criminal organization. Given her intimate knowledge of the organization, her testimony would be a coup for investigators trying to disruptthe Sinaloa cartel's international network.

As a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, Ms. Coronel, the mother of twin 9-year-old daughters, could live in the U.S. and go into the witness-protection program if she reached a cooperation agreement, said Mike Vigil, a former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "They are her biggest motivators to cooperate," Mr. Vigil said. "She can't afford to go away for 30 years."

Cooperators typically get a significantly reduced sentence, depending on their level of assistance. Ms. Coronel is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison; however, it is rare for defendants to receive the statutory maximum, especially if they plead guilty or cooperate with authorities.

Aside from historical information she may have given or could give, Ms. Coronel would be useful in pointing out potential future informants to the DEA, said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security analyst. She may also have insight on current and former Mexican government officials who have received bribe payments from the Sinaloa cartel, he said.

During the years her husband was on the run or in prison, Ms. Coronel acted as his courier, giving instructions to his lieutenants on bribe payments, weapons purchases and increasing heroin production, according to her arrest affidavit, which was released earlier this year.

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Joaqun Guzmn, the Mexican drug lord known as "El Chapo," was convicted by a U.S. jury of 10 criminal counts related to a range of federal crimes spanning nearly 30 years. Photo: U.S. law enforcement/AP (Video from 2/12/19)

Sheplayed a key role in helping Mr. Guzmanplan and carry out an escape from Mexico's top security prison in 2015, according to the arrest affidavit. He fled the prison through a nearly one-mile-long tunnel, complete with a track for a modified motorcycle, that led from a small bathroom in his cell to an abandoned warehouse.

Ms. Coronel used her many visits to the prison to relay instructions to Mr. Guzman's sons, who were charged with carrying out the escape plan, according to the arrest warrant. Mr. Guzman's escape was deeply embarrassing to the Mexican government at the time.

After Mr. Guzman was recaptured and returned to the same prison, Ms. Coronel continued her efforts to help her husband escape a second time, the arrest affidavit said. Mr. Guzman was transferred to another prison and the bid to break him out failed even after a bribe of $2 million was paid to a Mexican official in charge of the prison system, Ms. Coronel said, according to the affidavit.

Ms. Coronel is the daughter of a prominent Sinaloa drug trafficker who is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Mexico. She is Mr. Guzman's third or fourth wife. In 2007, Mexican officials say Mr. Guzman and hundreds of gunmen took control of Ms. Coronel's remote village and hosted a party with cases of whiskey and a norteo band to celebrate Ms. Coronel's victory in a local beauty pageant. She married him months later.

Ms. Coronel became a media sensation during the 2019 trial in New York of Mr. Guzman,who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Fashionably dressed and wearing oversize dark glasses, she attended the trial daily and sat stoically even as texts between Mr. Guzman and one of his mistresses were read out.