Emerging from federal custody after a three-year sentence, Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of the infamous Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, stepped into a new chapter of her life. The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed her release, following the sentence for her role in aiding and abetting her husband’s widespread criminal empire.
In 2021, Mrs. Aispuro, in a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, admitted guilt to three federal charges. Upon the completion of her sentence, she had been relocated from a Texas prison to a halfway house in California, laying the groundwork for her release. The road ahead, however, does not promise complete freedom as she is expected to commit to four years of supervised release.
With her sentencing came a display of remorse. Aispuro expressed a clear regret, accepting responsibility for the harm caused by her actions. Among the charges she pleaded guilty to were money laundering conspiracy and engagement in transactions with an international narcotics trafficker.
Notoriously, Aispuro helped orchestrate one of her husband’s audacious escapes from a Mexican prison in 2015. She smuggled a GPS watch to him, veiling it as a food item, aiding the diggers of the escape tunnel under the prison to locate him accurately.
Guzman, the one-time leader of the Sinaloa cartel, fell into authorities’ hands again in the subsequent year. His crimes, fronting a sprawling drug conspiracy that inflicted murders and chaos for over two decades, led to a 2019 sentence of life imprisonment in a U.S. prison. Despite his conviction, Guzman has maintained his assertion that his trial in New York was unjust, casting aspersions on the fairness of his case by describing it as “stained.”
