Partners in life and crime: El Chapo Guzman & Emma Coronel

Brut America

He’s El Chapo Guzman, once the most powerful drug lord of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. She is Emma Coronel, his partner in life and crime. This is their story.

Transcript

00:00He is El Chapo Guzman, once the most powerful drug lord of the Sinaloa cartel.

00:05She's his wife, Emma Coronel, partner in life and crime.

00:19This is their story.

00:25It's July 11th, 2015 in Mexico's most secure prison.

00:29Drug trafficker El Chapo Guzman escapes through a mile-long tunnel,

00:33dug straight to the shower in his prison cell.

00:35In a way, El Chapo came to be known as the master of tunnels.

00:39In order to carve out this tunnel, the engineers he hired needed GPS to locate his cell.

00:45And Emma Coronel gave El Chapo a watch fitted with GPS,

00:48so engineers could map out a path straight to his cell.

00:51As such, she was an accomplice in her husband's escape.

00:59With the death of Pablo Escobar in 1993, the Mexican cartels,

01:18who until then had acted as transporters, took control of drug trafficking in the Americas.

01:24In the mountains of Sinaloa, in the northwest of the country,

01:27one man rapidly climbed the ranks of organized crime.

01:30Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias El Chapo, which means shorty,

01:35was born in the rural community of Ratuna, by the Raguato in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

01:41Sinaloa is the birthplace of drug trafficking in Mexico.

01:44El Chapo was raised in a poor family and he was practically illiterate.

01:48He started out producing marijuana before becoming a hitman.

01:52That's how he rose through the ranks of the cartel.

01:54In the early 2000s, he had his breakthrough alongside his partner Ismael Elmayo Zambala.

02:01The Mexican cartels began solidifying their dominance.

02:05They held a monopoly on drug trafficking to the United States,

02:08the world's biggest consumer market.

02:10Amongst Mexico's drug traffickers, the Sinaloa cartel was the most powerful of them all.

02:14At the time, El Chapo was not the head of the Sinaloa cartel,

02:18but one of the leaders of a federation of drug traffickers,

02:21who played a very important role in the organization, particularly in the media.

02:25He was much admired, often appearing with beautiful women,

02:29private planes, luxury cars, and so on,

02:32and thus came to represent the model of so-called narco culture in Mexico.

02:36In 2006, Mexico's newly elected president, Felipe Calderón,

02:41declared war on drug traffickers,

02:42and thousands of soldiers were deployed across the country in this fight.

02:52And it set off a firestorm.

02:56Things went absolutely haywire.

02:59The cartels armed themselves even more,

03:01and today we can count about 350,000 cartel-related deaths since this war on drugs started.

03:08Nearly the entire country continues to be affected by violence related to drug trafficking.

03:13In this war against the cartels, Calderón relied on a strongman,

03:17his minister of public security, Genaro García Luna.

03:21He was the anti-drug czar, taking the lead in this war against the cartels.

03:31But under his tenure, very few leaders of the Sinaloa cartel were arrested.

03:36Those who were arrested were dissenters.

03:39In time, it was apparent that he was working for the cartel,

03:43meaning he made exceptions for the Sinaloa cartel,

03:46arrested members of its opponents,

03:48and let drug shipments pass through to the United States.

03:51In February 2023,

03:53García Luna was found guilty of corruption and cocaine trafficking in U.S. court.

03:58This has been an extremely difficult and long road for Mr. García Luna,

04:01and his fight will continue.

04:03He will continue to do everything he can to clear his good name.

04:07In 2006, El Chapo met Emma Coronel at a ball.

04:11He danced with her, and they fell in love.

04:13At the time, she was entering a beauty pageant and threw a big party to celebrate.

04:18At the party, El Chapo showed up with hundreds of armed men and asked her to marry him.

04:37The day she turned 18, they got married and very, very quickly began having children.

04:48It's January 2016 in the state of Sinaloa.

04:52On the run since his daring escape from Mexico's highest security prison,

04:56El Chapo was finally arrested.

05:00In the home he was using as a hideout,

05:03Mexican police discovered a veritable arsenal,

05:05including two armored cars and a grenade launcher.

05:08El Chapo was arrested as he once again tried to escape through a tunnel.

05:13El Chapo was extradited to the United States to stay on trial.

05:18During his 2018 trial in New York,

05:20Emma Coronel was there every step of the way.

05:24We see her showing up to court in Gucci sunglasses.

05:27She's in a tank top and she's standing on the ground.

05:29She's screaming, she's screaming, she's screaming.

05:32She's screaming, she's screaming.

05:34She's screaming, she's screaming.

05:35She's screaming, she's screaming.

05:37She's screaming, she's screaming.

05:39She's screaming, she's screaming.

05:40in Gucci sunglasses, she's in attendance at all the hearings and really becomes highly publicized.

05:56In fact, Emma Coronel comes from the cartel world. Her father was a drug trafficker. He

06:02was arrested in 2013 and her uncle, Ignacio Nacho Coronel, was an associate of El Chapo.

06:09Said plainly, El Chapo chose a wife who would respect the code of silence or omerta

06:15in the organization and who already was part of his world.

06:27She tried to portray El Chapo as if he were the best possible husband. At the same time,

06:32she was cultivating her social media presence.

06:35This Instagram account, followed by several hundred thousand people,

06:39which Coronel denies creating, documented her personal life.

07:05Emma Coronel did television interviews and even appeared on Cartel Crew,

07:10a VH1 reality show featuring family members of drug traffickers.

07:14In 2019, El Chapo was sentenced to life in federal prison.

07:19Two years later, it was Emma Coronel's turn to face the U.S. justice system.

07:24She admitted to having been aware that large quantities of drugs were being

07:27imported into the United States and also admitted her involvement in her husband's 2015 escape.

07:34She was sentenced to three years in prison, a seemingly lenient sentence

07:45that some suggest indicates she may have cooperated with U.S. authorities.

07:49But for now, that's just a theory. Her lawyer patently denies such allegations.

07:54Her role was simply to be the wife. That's what her role was, period.

07:59After spending 18 months in federal prison in Texas,

08:02Emma Coronel was transferred to a halfway house in California in June 2023.

08:07Three months later, on September 13th, she was released from custody.

08:10In the U.S., people in witness protection change their identity and live in hiding,

08:15protected by law enforcement.

08:17If she doesn't return to Mexico, that could suggest she cooperated.

08:21Adherence to the code of silence is a non-negotiable rule.

08:24If you betray the cartel, you die.

08:32you

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