Wife of Mexican drug lord "El Chapo" to be released from prison, U.S. authorities say

The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is set to be released from prison on Wednesday following her 2021 arrest.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, a former beauty queen and dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, is currently being held at Long Beach Residential Reentry Management in California, U.S. Bureau of Prisons records show. The facility is a low-security confinement institution. She was transferred there from FMC Carswell in Texas on May 30.

"For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not elaborate on specific release plans," a Bureau of Prisons official said.

Coronel Aispuro pleaded guilty in 2021 to willfully conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. Coronel Aispuro also pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy charge and to engaging in transactions with a foreign narcotics trafficker.

Prosecutors had asked for a four-year sentence, but U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras imposed a three-year term, saying Coronel Aispuro's role was a small piece of a much larger organization.

Her attorneys at the time pointed out that Coronel Aispuro was 17 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, her attorney, said at the time.

"El Chapo" is serving a life sentence in the U.S. He was convicted in Feb. 2019 on murder conspiracy and drug charges. The drug kingpin was also ordered to forfeit $12.6 billion in profits he made off his drug business. He is serving his time in the notorious United States Penitentiary Florence, a supermax federal prison in Colorado.

"El Chapo" and Coronel Aispuro have twin daughters together. During Coronel Aispuro's sentencing, she asked the judge for a punishment that would allow her to watch her then 9-year-old twins grow up. 

The drug lord last month wrote to the federal judge who oversaw his case, asking for Coronel Aispuro and their young daughters to visit him at the supermax prison, according to a handwritten letter obtained by CBS News.

Coronel Aispuro still faces years of supervised release. 

In:
• Drug Cartels
• El Chapo

Aliza Chasan

Aliza Chasan is a digital producer at 60 Minutes and CBS News.

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