El Chapo's Wife Emma Coronel Could Dismantle Sinaloa Cartel by Cutting Deal With U.S.: Report
Drug kingpin El Chapo's wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, could help bring the end of the notorious Sinaloa cartel if she decides to cut a deal with the U.S. government.
Former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) top official Mike Vigil told The Sun that Emma Coronel would likely provide law enforcement with the "blueprint" to dismantle the $11 billion Sinaloa drug cartel.
Vigil is a former DEA chief of international operations. He was also one of the world's leading experts when it comes to Mexican drug cartels.
Reports said that Emma Coronel could face a lengthy jail sentence and not see her beloved twin daughters.
"She can draw a blueprint for U.S. and Mexican law enforcement to dismantle the organization, little by little," Vigil said in The Sun report.
Meanwhile, El Chapo's wife has been allowed to spend just two hours away from her cell while awaiting trial. According to a Daily Mail report, her New York-based lawyer, Mariel Colon, said that Emma Coronel spends the rest of her time reading.
"Her confinement conditions have not improved yet. She is locked up almost all day," her lawyer said.
El Chapo's wife was said to be separated from the rest of the inmate population. Colon noted that Emma Coronel only leaves her cell when they take her out to the small interior room and nothing else.
The lawyer also said that the prison does not offer any activities that she can be distracted.
RELATED ARTICLE: 'El Chapo's' Wife Emma Coronel Aispuro Still Mum Amid Husband's Recapture
Emma Coronel Aispuro Helped El Chapo to Escape
El Chapo's wife was accused of helping to run her husband's drug-trafficking empire. She was also accused of helping the 63-year-old drug kingpin escape from a maximum-security Mexican prison in 2015 and plot another escape before El Chapo was extradited to the U.S. in 2017.
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was sentenced to spend the rest of his days in the ADX Florence "supermax" prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019.
The two entered a relationship when the Sinaloa cartel leader saw Emma Coronel at a beauty pageant in the Mexican state of Durango in 2007. They got married when she was just 18 years old and him at 47.
Coronel's other lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said that right now, everything is on the table for El Chapo's wife. Lichtman added that there is no chance that his client will spend the rest of her life in prison.
Coronel is being charged with participating in a conspiracy to distribute drugs. The said distributed drugs were heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
Prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi said that Coronel had worked closely with members of the Sinaloa cartel and had possessed the financial means to be at serious flight risk, BBC News reported.
Coronel, who has dual U.S.-Mexico citizenship, was a former journalism student and a beauty pageant winner. She came under the media's spotlight during El Chapo's trial for appearing to laugh in the tearful testimony of one of El Chapo's mistresses.
Emma Coronel was supportive of her husband during his trial, saying that he admired him as "the human being" that she met and married.
WATCH: Emma Coronel Aispuro: El Chapo's Wife Held in U.S. Jail on Drug Charges- From Bloomberg Quicktake: Now