El Chapo’s wife helped in 2015 prison break, witness says

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This article was published 27/01/2019 (2776 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK — Drug kingpin El Chapo’s beauty queen wife played a pivotal role in his astounding 2015 escape from a heavily guarded Mexican prison, a government witness testified Wednesday.

Loyal spouse Emma Coronel, a regular attendee at her husband’s Brooklyn Federal Court trial, relayed messages from her husband, Joaquin Guzman, to plotters outside the maximum security Altiplano Federal Prison, said co-operating witness Damaso Lopez Nunes, who was among the group.

“Mi compadre (Guzman) sent a message, he was thinking of taking the risk,” he testified, claiming that Coronel acted as the go-between. “He wanted to know if I could help. I said yes.”

Coronel, never charged in either the United States or Mexico in connection with her spouse’s crimes, showed no emotion as she exited the court and ignored questions from reporters.

Coronel’s brother, riding on a motorcycle, actually picked up Guzman in the secret tunnel beneath his prison cell’s shower and drove the infamous cartel boss 2.4 kilometres to freedom on July 11, 2015, according to Nunes — the 13th drug world turncoat to testify so far.

And Guzman’s sons allegedly oversaw the purchase of property outside the prison when tunnel construction began. Guzman, via his now 28-year-old wife, also called for weapons and an armoured truck as part of the escape plan.

“Emma gave us the message,” Nunes said. “I dedicated myself to get what was asked of me. It wasn’t something I could do overnight, but I was working on it.”

But not all of the plan went so smoothly. According to Nunes, the builders responsible for the “secret tunnel” were so loud in creating the escape route that other inmates complained about the din.

Nunes, a lanky-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair, also recounted how Guzman forked out US$2 million to the chief of Mexico’s prison system as part of the escape plot.

This bribe ended up going to waste when Chapo was recaptured in 2016, and the director declined to help him escape again.

Coronel, as the trial stretches into its 10th week, was left generally untarnished by testimony detailing her husband’s allegedly murderous reign.

But Nunes testified that her motorcyclist brother delivered El Chapo to a warehouse once they left the tunnel, with Guzman soon relocated to the mountains and put on a plane.

The tunnel architects were able to use a GPS watch on his wrist to locate his cell and then create the underground passageway escape route, Nunes said.

One day earlier, Nunes recounted a half-dozen murders committed at Chapo’s bidding.

— New York Daily News