WILD details about El Chapo's tunnel escape have been revealed as his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro was arrested over the jailbreak plot and on suspicion of drug trafficking.
Aispuro, 31, a dual American and Mexican citizen, will appear in court today after being detained at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Monday.
Court documents detail her alleged involvement in the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera's escape from prison.
The US government's case is helped by an informant – named 'Cooperating Witness 1' – who revealed Coronel allegedly asked them to help with a plot to break El Chapo out of El Altiplano, a maximum-security prison near the city of Toluca, central Mexico.
The complex plan included Guzman's sons purchasing a piece of land near the prison which would allow them to construct a tunnel from which the drug lord could then escape.
The court documents say: "According to Cooperating Witness 1, Guzman, through Coronel, asked Guzman’s sons to purchase a piece of land near Altiplano prison and instructed Cooperating Witness 1 to purchase a warehouse near Altiplano prison as well as firearms and an armored truck.
ESCAPE PLAN
"Those present also discussed the need to get a GPS watch to Guzman in prison in order to pinpoint his exact whereabouts so as to construct the tunnel with an entry point accessible to him."
The documents add: "According to Cooperating Witness 1, he/she later met with Coronel, Ivan, Alfredo, and Ovidio to discuss the Altiplano prison escape plan."
According to the witness, there were several meetings to discuss about the escape plan and then updated Guzman about it.
Among the details which have been brought to light, the escape was planned for "a Saturday or Sunday because there are no officials or visitors at the jail on those days".
On July, 2015, Guzman escaped from Altiplano prison via an underground tunnel – which was 1.5km (1 mile) long and had an entry under the shower in his cell.
Chapo had been captured less than a year earlier, in February 2014, after being on the run for more than 13 years.
Guzman was captured again in 2016, six months after escaping from prison.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said at the time: "Mission accomplished: We got him."
More details about the escape plan were revealed when his former lieutenant, Dámaso López Nuñez, took the witness stand during the drug lord’s trial at the US District Court in Brooklyn.
For the first time, López claimed that El Chapo’s wife, Emma Coronel, was allegedly a key player in the escape, coordinating the plot with the drug lord’s sons.
At the time, Coronel sat in the courtroom while López testified, but declined to comment through an attorney.
El Chapo, one of the world's most-wanted drug lords, smuggled cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines to the US through the Sinaloa cartel he led.
Today his wife will appear in federal court in the US District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Harvey G. Michael via video conference.
According to court documents, Aispuro, an alleged "narco princess", faces charges of participating in a conspiracy to distribute drugs for importation into the US.
In addition, Aispuro is charged with allegedly conspiring with others to help Mexican drug kingpin Guzman Loera escape from Altiplano prison in Almoloya de Juarez in July 2015.
Aispuro relayed messages for her husband and aided him in shipping drugs from 2012 to 2014 and dodging arrest by American and Mexican authorities, according to court documents obtained by The New York Times.
Federal authorities were investigating Aispuro for at least two years on being an accomplice to her husband.
Aispuro's case is being probed by the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
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