Federal authorities reported that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s wife was released from prison on Wednesday after serving less than two years of a three-year sentence for aiding her husband in running his multibillion-dollar drug business.
In a statement to NBC News on Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced that Emma Coronel Aispuro had been released from its custody.
In November 2021, Coronel Aispuro, 34, was given a three-year prison term.
Coronel Aispuro, a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico, entered a guilty plea to a number of federal offenses earlier that year, including conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
According to Telemundo, NBC’s Spanish-language network, she showed regret and embarrassment after her punishment.
Coronel Aispuro addressed the audience through an interpreter in Spanish, saying, “I am here prior to you asking you for forgiveness.”
In addition, the judge ordered Coronel Aispuro to forfeit approximately $1.5 million in revenues from property he acquired from the narcotics operation, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
At the nearby Dulles International Airport in February 2021, she was taken into custody.
According to U.S. judicial officials, she assisted her husband, who was the head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico at the time, in escaping from a maximum security jail there in 2015.
After being apprehended and sent back to prison, Guzmán’s wife allegedly planned another escape for him two years later.
Guzmán was found guilty in the United States in 2019 of running a continuous criminal operation and of distributing tons of cocaine there. He is currently receiving a life sentence in jail + 30 years.