At just eighteen years old, Emma Coronel Aispuro became the first lady of the Sinaloa underworld.
Her husband soon "owned" all of Mexico while she had everything she dreamed of - dresses from the most famous designers, villas in exotic destinations, unusual pets, millions of euros in the account... However, the epilogue of her tale is not a happy one. Her husband, the drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, ended up behind bars and then her downfall began.
Emma no longer lives in glamorous apartments in New York. Her life has now been reduced to a few steps in solitary confinement in a prison in Virginia, it reports bbc.
Inside, says her lawyer, Mariel Colon Miro, Emma reads "romantic" books to forget her problems, reports the Telegraph.
Prison conditions are the complete opposite of the life she once had. Just a few months ago, she wanted to launch the El Chapo Guzman clothing line. At her husband's rehearsals in New York, she came with jewels around her neck and expensive watches.
It all ends with her arrest at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, when she is accused of helping her husband run the notorious Sinaloa cartel.
FBI officials said Emma distributed cocaine and helped plan her husband's escape from a Mexican prison in 2015.
A trial date has not yet been set, but if convicted, she could face up to life in prison.
Leaving aside the question of guilt or innocence, analysts who study the world of drug trafficking say Coronel carved an unusual role for herself. She was a public figure, an entrepreneur and a watchdog, helping to control who had access to her husband while he was running the cartel.
Traditionally, the wives of drug traffickers are seen as "very sexual" and "lacking agency," says Cecilia Farfan-Méndez, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego. Coronel was different, "She showed that women can hold positions of power."
Derek Maltz, a former special agent in charge of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, says that "When you're in this business, you're either going to get caught or you're going to get killed."
Coronel put on a brave face, with her plans for a fashion company, but federal investigators were "choking her down." As Maltz puts it, "The world was collapsing around her, the walls were crumbling."
Kidnappings and murders
Coronel was eating outside the Federal District Court in Brooklyn during her husband's trial. She was sitting with friends in the cafe, joking about mothers and how to deal with them.
"She has a big personality," says Miro, her lawyer. "The mother I know - she's full of energy, always smiling."
Coronel, a citizen of both Mexico and the U.S., met Guzman when she was 17 and they married soon after. They have two children, Maria Joaquina and Emali. During her husband's trial, Coronel sat in the courtroom almost every day.
During the holidays, she wrestled with the styles along the marble corridors, reports the Telegraph.
"A diva of Sinaloa," says Romain Le Cour, a Paris-based security analyst who has spent time in Mexico studying the cartels. With red lipstick and diamonds and tight jeans, she embodied the popular image of a "buchona," someone who piqued the interest of drug lords.
George Mason University Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera has done research in Sinaloa, Mexico, where El Chapo's cartel operates.
She defines the term, buchona as "They wear very expensive clothes, Louis Vuitton bags. Everything is an exaggeration and she is a perfect representation of this image. It's all about appearance, plastic surgery."
One of her most striking features, Correa-Cabrera noted, is her "backside," which she described as "extremely curved."
Her glamorous image contrasted with the grim reality of El Chapo's cartel operations.
Guzman used violence to control the illegal drug market and reaped his successes, lavishing wealth on his wife and family. More than 300 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006, the year the government launched its war on the cartels.
The victims included Guzmán's enemies as well as individuals who were close to him. The body of one of his lovers was found in the trunk of a car, a murder said to have been carried out by a rival gang.
The price of loyalty
Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, Guzmán's longtime girlfriend, testified against him during the trial. She was arrested in June 2017 on drug possession charges near the US-Mexico border.
She pleaded guilty and was told she was facing a decade in prison. Sanchez, a mother of two, cooperated with prosecutors as part of a plea deal.
Dressed in a prison suit, she described their case and his work as a cartel leader in the courtroom. She had a vertigo. Guzman, sitting not far away, looked impatient and continued to look at a clock on the wall.
Coronel sat in the second row. She combed her long hair with her fingers and that day wore a velvet smoking jacket, the same kind her husband wore.
The matching jackets showed the strength of their marriage, says William Purpura, who served as Guzman's attorney. Coronel wanted to send a message to Sanchez by wearing matching husband-and-wife attire on the day the ex-wife testified.
"It was a 'Screw You' for the lady," Purpura explains. "She was saying, 'He's mine.'" After speaking in court, Sanchez returned to her cell. Coronel left for dinner in New York City.
Not long after, the tables were turned on both women. Sanchez was released from prison and is now free. Coronel is behind bars and is being held without bail.
Many were horrified by the way Coronel handled her lifestyle during the trial and were disappointed by the way she remained faithful to her husband.
Security analyst Grandmaison says "She's seen as a fool."
Not from Sanchez, though.
When her attorney, Heather Shaner, told her Coronel was in jail, Sanchez showed no sign of remorse.
Instead, her lawyer recalls, "She didn't feel sad because, she said, 'She's just another mother who needs to be away from her children.'" /Telegraph/
