Wife of ‘El Chapo’ pleads guilty to drug trafficking charges

The wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has pleaded guilty to U.S. drug trafficking charges.

Emma Coronel Aispuro pleaded guilty Thursday to three federal charges before a D.C. court, according to The Associated Press: conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine; a money laundering conspiracy charge; and engaging in transactions with a foreign narcotics trafficker.

Aispuro was expected to take a plea on Thursday.

She is being held without bond and is expected to be sentenced in September, according to CBS News.

She faces up to life in prison for the conspiracy to distribute charge, 20 years in prison for the money laundering charge and ten years for the illegal transactions charge.

Aispuro was arrested in Virginia in February and accused of helping her husband run his drug-trafficking empire.

The government also says she conspired to assist Guzmán in his 2015 escape from a Mexican prison and helped him plan other escapes before he was extradited to the U.S. in 2017.

Guzmán was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison in 2019 after being found guilty of narcotics trafficking, using a firearm in furtherance of his crimes and participating in a money laundering conspiracy.