El Chapo's wife arrested near Washington

The wife of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the imprisoned former leader of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested on Monday over her alleged involvement in international drug trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Gloria Tso reports.

The wife of El Chapo, Mexico's most notorious cartel leader, was arrested Monday on drug trafficking charges.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia and charged with conspiring to illegally import and distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines in the U.S. She had been under investigation by U.S. authorities for at least two years as an accomplice to her husband.

Sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years in a celebrated trial in 2019, where prosecutors said he amassed power through murders and wars with rival cartels, El Chapo is now being held at ADX Florence in Colorado, the United States' most secure "super maximum-security" prison.

Prosecutors say Coronel also conspired to help her husband in his July 2015 escape from the Altiplano prison in Mexico, when he dug a mile-long tunnel from his cell and plotted a second escape following his capture by Mexican authorities in January 2016.

A lawyer for Coronel could not immediately be identified.

A Mexican official familiar with her case, who asked not to be identified, said her arrest appeared to be a sole U.S. initiative, and that Coronel was not wanted in Mexico.

She is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Tuesday.