Will El Chapo Escape Again
Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the Mexican drug lord and cartel leader, has been caught again and is preparing for trial. See the odds on his sentence, whether he will escape again, and more. El Chapo managed to escape twice from maximum security prisons, always using the tool of bribery, but with an imaginative level that went beyond the norm. Escobar, on the other hand, managed to escape from prison once, but more than a prison, it was considered a vacation hotel that he built with all kind of luxuries.
LATEST UPDATES: Tracking COVID-19 Vaccines Racial Justice
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
- Mexico's most prized prisoner, drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, 56, escaped from a maximum security prison for a second time through an elaborate one-mile ventilated, well-lit underground.
- The Escape is one of the most intense and bloodiest escapes in history with over 64 cartel members and prison guards dead. An estimated 130 Sinaloa cartel members attacked the Prison armed with firearms, mostly AK-47’s, and helped El Chapo escape with brute force in less than an hour.
- Will El Chapo Escape Prison Again? For Guzman and his family, El Chapo’s magical prison escapes appear to have come to an end. He’s no longer in a Mexican prison where inmates, prison staff, and local authorities can help him escape. Furthermore, he’s far removed from fellow cartel members and his unlimited resources.
Jaclyn Diaz / NPR
The wife of one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, was arrested Monday for allegedly helping her husband run his multi-billion dollar international drug cartel and for aiding in his 2015 escape from a Mexican prison.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, a California-born, dual U.S.-Mexican citizen, was arrested Monday at Washington Dulles International Airport. She faces charges for participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana for importation into the U.S., according to the Justice Department.
Could El Chapo Escape Again
Investigators also believe Coronel conspired with others to assist Guzmán in his July 11, 2015 escape from Altiplano prison in Mexico and tried to organize a second escape from jail a year later.
Coronel's arrest is the latest development in the Guzmán cartel family saga. El Chapo was the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel for nearly 30 years. Two prison escapes in Mexico helped boost the legend surrounding Guzman and his family.
After Guzmán was re-arrested in Mexico in January 2016 following his first prison escape, he was extradited to the U.S. in 2017. He was convicted of ten criminal counts in federal court in New York in 2019 and is currently serving life in prison.
Guzmán's sons are also involved in drug smuggling. In October 2019, a massive gunfight between the cartel's gunmen and Mexican authorities broke out after government officers attempted to arrest one of Guzmán's son, Ovidio Guzmán López, who is wanted in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges.
He was arrested but later released after the cartel's gunmen took off on a rampage across the city of Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state on Mexico's Pacific coast, killing military troops and bystanders.
Coronel's involvement
Coronel married Guzmán in 2007 when she was a teenager. She and Guzmán have two twin daughters together.
Her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, was a member of the Sinaloa Cartel. He and his son, Ines Omar Coronel Aispuro, were arrested in Mexico in April 2013. Four years later, a Mexican court sentenced the two to more than 10 years in prison for marijuana trafficking and firearms violations.
The FBI alleges that Coronel played an active role in her husband's business while he was both evading arrest and while he was imprisoned.
According to court documents, from 2012 to 2014 Coronel relayed messages on behalf of Guzmán to support the drug trafficking operations while her husband was in hiding from Mexican authorities. After he was first arrested in 2014, she continued to deliver messages she received from Guzmán when she visited him in prison.
A cooperating witness working with the U.S. government provided details of messages Coronel helped collect from Guzmán.
The unidentified witness told the FBI that Coronel, as well as Guzmán's four sons, worked together to facilitate his escape from Altiplano through an underground tunnel.
Chapo Guzman Escapes 2017
This witness was tasked by the family to purchase a warehouse near Altiplano prison as well as guns and an armored truck ahead of Guzmán's first escape. This witness says they met with Guzmán's sons and Coronel to discuss this plan.
After Guzmán was captured again in 2016, this witness says Coronel contacted them again to try to spring El Chapo from prison. The witness was given $1 million, at least $100,000 given to them by Coronel directly, to facilitate the escape. Coronel told the informant to buy property near the prison where Guzmán was being held. But before they could execute their plan, Guzmán was transferred to another prison, court documents say.
Coronel allegedly told the witness that she and Guzmán's sons were attempting to facilitate her husband's transfer to another jail and that around $2 million had been paid to the Mexican official in charge of the country's prisons to make that happen.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
FEATURED PODCAST
San Diego news; when you want it, where you want it. Get local stories on politics, education, health, environment, the border and more. New episodes are ready weekday mornings. Hosted by Anica Colbert and produced by KPBS, San Diego and the Imperial County's NPR and PBS station.
Want more KPBS news?
Find us on Twitter and Facebook, or sign up for our newsletters. + Subscribe to our podcasts
To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.
More Like This
Massive Gun Battle Erupts In Mexico Over Son Of Drug Kingpin 'El Chapo'
- Oct. 18, 2019
Sons Of 'El Chapo' Indicted On Drug Conspiracy Charge
- Feb. 21, 2019
'El Chapo,' Notorious Drug Kingpin, Found Guilty After Dramatic Trial In New York
- Feb. 12, 2019
Jury Hears Closing Arguments As Dramatic 'El Chapo' Trial Nears Its End
- Jan. 30, 2019
Latest News
Sweetwater Board To Vote On School Reopening Plan As North County Districts See Theirs Curtailed
San Diego Reports 307 New COVID-19 Cases As It Awaits State Data On Red Tier
Carlsbad-Based Callaway Golf Company Completes Merger With Topgolf
Little more than a year after photographing Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman when the Mexican drug lord was recaptured, another emergency call came early on Sunday 12 July. “El Chapo”, or 'Shorty', had escaped again, this time through a tunnel, from the high-security prison knows as El Altiplano.
It was only late in the afternoon on Tuesday, more than two full days after that early call, when the authorities let us in to see the tunnel site. What started out as 100 journalists had now been reduced by the wait to 12. I was the second one in.