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Emma Coronel claims that she did not know who El Chapo was when they met
Emma Coronel keeps saying that she did not know who Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was when they first met in 2007. In the documentary “Married to El Chapo: Emma Coronel Speaks” by Oxygen, she shared that the ranch where she grew up in Durango was without running water, electricity, or television, so she didn’t know the old man who came up to her and asked her to dance at a party.” “To be honest, the Emma back then, I don’t even know if she really thought about the future, or if she was just living and surviving in the here and now,” Coronel stated. “I was young, immature, and inexperienced. And he was 50 years old.” ” Coronel was 17 years old and was a model in the making; however, Guzmán had already been on the run for six years after escaping from prison in 2001.
From ranch to helicopter: Coronel reminisces first meeting with Guzmán
At the moment, Guzmán is behind bars in a maximum-security prison in Colorado and he was given a life sentence after his trial in February 2019 which was about him leading a worldwide drug‑trafficking network. Nevertheless, Coronel reminisced about the time they met for the very first time which was 18 years ago when a helicopter landed at her family’s ranch and she happened to be hanging laundry. “You ripped all my clothes off the line and dusted everything,” she remembered.
She said the man of the older generation who came out of the helicopter — a fugitive at that time — impressed her with his aura. “He was very handsome, interesting, energetic,” Coronel said and explained that these characteristics made her want to be with him. She was only 17 years old then.
On her 18th birthday, Coronel married Guzmán in a symbolic ceremony
Coronel shortly after became the Reina del Café y la Guayaba (Coffee and Guava Festival Queen) in Canelas — a title that she keeps to her, though there were hearsays that her relationship with Guzmán influenced the result. On July 2, 2007, her 18th birthday, she and Guzmán held a “symbolic wedding” at her family’s ranch; he was already married to Alejandrina Salazar and never got a civil union with Coronel. Looking back at that time, she now says that talking about her wedding or past life “does not excite me” and that such memories most of the time make her feel sad.
Coronel tells of secret visits to Guzmán’s hideouts
Coronel, 36 now, remembers that Guzmán never explained his work to her and she never inquired — “and I also didn’t see him working.” She got used to the life in Culiacán and to the fact that he showed up on weekends at different hideouts. In order not to be followed, she didn’t take her phone with her and went by very indirect ways which at times could mean that after entering a shop, changing cars, or getting on small planes that were landing on “secret air strips” in the mountains, no one would be able to trace her.
“For me, that was a normal life,” Coronel says — Guzmán arrested during family visit, later escaped
“For me, it was a normal life,” Coronel remembered and also stated, “I now understand that it was not normal.”
The couple had twin daughters in 2011 and Guzmán was arrested during a meeting with Coronel and the children in Mazatlán in February 2014 after he had been on the run for 13 years. Coronel remembers visiting him in prison, where he told her, “Don’t be worried, I’ll be out soon, everything will be okay.” However, he was the one who eventually fled El Altiplano in July 2015 through a tunnel about a mile long that had been dug under his shower.”
Guzmán apprehended again, Coronel attends trial and says she is still healing
After his break from prison in 2015, Guzmán was only caught again in January 2016, so he was at large for six months. In fact, during the first day of his U.S. trial, November 2018, Coronel was there every time and stated, “I went there voluntarily… No one forced me.” She also mentioned that she is still in the process of healing from that time.
It was a long and detailed trial with a lot of evidence being handed over by prosecutors. Moreover, a witness who was an associate and talking about the 2015 escape from the prison conspiracy, testified on the stand that Coronel was the one involved and that she directed the activities.
Coronel is taken into custody, admits guilt and gets a 3-year prison term
In 2021, Emma Coronel was arrested for conspiracy to distribute drugs and for giving false information during a manhunt for her husband. As per the Department of Justice, she ended up pleading guilty to charges related to drug trafficking on an international scale, money laundering, and a criminal violation of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Consequently, on November 30, 2021, she was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Mariel Colón, the attorney, in an interview with Married to El Chapo, said that Coronel didn’t even think of going to trial seriously — she was afraid that if found guilty, she would be separated from her children for life. “I recognized my fault,” Coronel said, “and I am alright with that.”
Emma Coronel released in 2023; she says that she never saw El Chapo’s massive cash
In September 2023, Coronel was freed from federal custody, and she was put on a four-year probation and ordered by the court to pay a million and a half dollars as a government forfeiture. When questioned about the wealth of her husband that was rumored—Forbes estimated that he made $1 billion in 2012—Coronel responded that she “never saw those amounts,” and she also said, “I didn’t even hear him mention that he had them,” and that she would like it if the officials tell where the money is because “I never saw it.”
