El Chapo’s teen bride: Cartel beauty queen’s fascinating life

A storm is surrounding El Chapo’s wife after she was found with a forbidden phone at the drug kingpin’s trial. This is what we know about the 29-year-old.

Ms Coronel with lawyer Michelle Gelernt outside the US Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York. Picture: Don Emmert/AFP

As dark tales of drug smuggling, murders and violence unfold in a New York court, one woman has been adding a touch of glamour to proceedings as she sashays into court.

But as the trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman enters its third week, a storm blew up around his former beauty queen wife Emma Coronel Aispuro.

The 29-year-old was twice seen with a forbidden mobile phone in Brooklyn Federal Court — raising fears the Mexican drug kingpin was secretly communicating with his gorgeous spouse.

Prosecutors said Guzman’s defence lawyers had facilitated “unauthorised” contact between the Mexican drug lord and his wife.

Ms Coronel, the daughter of one of Guzman’s fellow cartel members, insisted she was only using the phone to help translate English to Spanish, and the judge said he would decide on any sanctions next week.

Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s wife, former beauty queen Emma Coronel Aispuro.

Her husband reportedly ensured she won a beauty pageant when she was 17 and he was 47, and they fell in love.

The glamorous 29-year-old is the daughter of Sinoloa cartel member Ines Coronel Barreras, who grew marijuana and opium poppies. Picture: Kena Betancur/AFP

Ms Coronel met the drug lord when he tunnelled out of prison in 2015. Picture: Reuters/Henry Romero/File Photo TPX Images of the day

Guzman’s wife has been supporting him in court in New York. Picture: Elizabeth Williams via AP

It was Ms Coronel who reportedly helped Guzman tunnel out of Mexico’s highest security prison in 2015 in his second audacious escape.

His first breakout from a maximum-security prison came in 2001, when he allegedly bribed guards to sneak him out in a laundry cart.

The pair reportedly met at a party organised by her father, a cattle rancher and Sinaloa cartel member. Ines Coronel Barreras is believed to have grown marijuana and opium poppies, while Ms Coronel’s uncle is slain cartel boss Igancio “Nacho” Coronel, one of El Chapo’s most trusted men.

El Chapo, then 47, is said to have exerted his influence to ensure the 17-year-old pageant queen won the Coffee and Guava Festival in the Mexican state of Durango in 2007. They married on her 18th birthday.

“I would say what won me over was his way of talking, how he treated me, the way we began to get along — first as friends and from that came everything else,” the cartel daughter told the LA Times. “He tends to win over people by his manner of being, of acting, the way he treats people in general.”

Ms Coronel is a US citizen, born in San Francisco when her Mexican mother Blanca Estela Aispuro was visiting relatives there in 1989.

She gave birth to El Chapo’s twin daughters in 2011, who regularly appear dressed in identical, chic outfits on her Instagram account.

The stylish young woman, who looks like a member of the Kardashian clan, regularly posts pouting selfies, bikini shots and photos of herself sporting Prada bags and designer sunglasses.

After Guzman’s 2015 escape, the pair hid out for six months during a national manhunt, even meeting with Hollywood actor Sean Penn while on the run.

El Chapo, allegedly the world’s biggest drug boss since Pablo Escobar and responsible for thousands of killings, gained almost mythical status. His defence lawyers claim he has become a “scapegoat” for the cartel and Mexican and US authorities who see him as the ultimate prize.

Police finally tracked the narcotics boss to a beachfront home in the northwestern state Sinaloa — the cartel’s stronghold — in 2016 when an accomplice went out for a huge taco order. El Chapo was recaptured and extradited to the US last year to stand trial.

Ms Coronel went to Washington to plead his case before political discussion forum the Organisation of American States. She claimed Mexican authorities were violating El Chapo’s human rights, telling local media he was being deprived of sleep in solitary confinement and that prison authorities were trying to “kill him slowly”.

Ms Coronel has been banned from visiting her husband in solitary confinement in Manhattan’s high-security Metropolitan Correctional Center, on the 10th floor usually reserved for alleged terrorists and arms dealers.

She was not even allowed to hug him before the trial began. She told reporters he was depressed and complained about the quality of New York’s water and what he was allowed to watch on TV.

A judge has refused repeated requests to allow Ms Coronel to visit her husband at the federal prison, where he has been held in solitary confinement on the ultra-secure 10th floor since his extradition in January 2017.

In September, she threw a huge Barbie-themed party for Emaly and Maria Joaquina’s seventh birthday in the capital of Sinaloa, home to the notorious cartel which is believed to have smuggled billions of dollars worth of cocaine into the US over several decades.

At the pre-trial hearings, she waved and blew kisses to her husband.

She appeared posing in sky-high heels in front of a giant pink palace laid out for a banquet, with the caption: “Happy birthday to my princesses”.

More recently, she has shared photos of herself and her girls outside Brooklyn Federal Court, where she has been supporting her husband since his arrival.

She was permitted to send him some written messages, subject to rigorous screening. Of course, the trial has heard that El Chapo is the master in secret codes, used to transport his South American product across Mexico and into the US.

“Emma is his biggest supporter,” a former Drug Enforcement Agency employee told the New York Post. “She’s too much of a security risk. Given that he has escaped so many times, no one wants to take any chances that he is giving his wife directions for a new escape attempt.”

In a press release issued to Mexican media, Ms Coronel asked journalists to respect the privacy of her children. She attacked fake social media accounts in her name, writing: “I ask what I have always shown everyone, and that is respect.”

Guzman has other children from previous marriages, with two of his sons also wanted on drug trafficking charges — one is on the DEA’s 10 Most Wanted List with a bounty of $5 million on his head.

There are other ways Ms Coronel can communicate with her husband.

Last week, she shared a photo of herself on Instagram wearing a jewelled headband and smoky eye makeup with the caption: “Even in the worst moments I have not stopped loving.”

Sharing images of herself outside court wearing stilettos and slim-fit pants, she added: “No matter what happens, I promised you to be always and here I am.

“I will love you for all my life.”