Wife of drug kingpin 'El Chapo' arrested on US drug charges

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WASHINGTON:

The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán was arrested on Monday in the United States.

She was accused of helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar cartel and plot his audacious escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and participating in the planning of a second prison escape before Guzman was extradited to the United States.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Tuesday.

Coronel was charged with conspiracy of distributing cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana in the United States.

Mike Vigil, the Drug Enforcement Administration's former chief of international operations said, "Coronel has been involved in the drug trade since she was a little girl. She knows the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel."

He said she could be willing to cooperate. "She has a huge motivation, and that is her twins." Vigil said.

(With inputs from PTI)

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