All language subtitles for Married.to.El.Chapo.Emma.Coronel.Speaks.2025.1080p.PCOK.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_Track04

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

Public Enemy Number One.

Head of the notorious
Sinaloa drug cartel.

The largest drug trafficking
organization in the world.

El Chapo became almost

mythological when he escapes
through a tunnel.

Guzmán was last seen
on a security camera

entering a shower area,
slipped into a hole,

into an elaborate tunnel.

He becomes the GOAT
of prison escapes.

I mean, you can't
make things like that up!

It's something that would be
like written for the movies.

They had to put out
a manhunt for him.

Arriba! Arriba!

And El Chapo was arrested.

Finally back in custody,
after 13 years on the run.

And he is very quickly
extradited to the US.

The narco-trafficker Trial
of the Century.

- Make way!
- Make way! Let's go!

One constant fixture
in the courtroom

has been Guzmán's wife
of more than 10 years.

- Former beauty queen.
- Beauty queen.

Former beauty queen
Emma Coronel.

There's an idea in daily
journalism of the "get,"

the best thing
you could possibly have

on the story, and that was her.

All our editors were like,
"Get her!"

People wanted to know how this
young lady was married to this

man who was significantly older.

18 and 50, people thought
that was just gross.

There was a cloud
of suspicion around her.

She herself is just one small
step removed from bloodshed.

Witness testimonies
portray him as a killer.

Authorities attribute 10,000
murders to El Chapo's gang.

You can't make this glamorous
life on the souls of the people

that have been tortured
and killed,

and not expect
to have to answer to it.

There's this sense
at any moment,

that she could be implicated.

And in fact, we know
that later she was.

"The wife of the world's most
notorious drug lord,

arrested Monday."

That was an interesting
mind shift,

when people stopped looking
just at Chapo

and started looking at her.

America wants to know, how do
you feel, ma'am?

America wants
to know how you feel?

There's so much
she hasnt shared.

What she saw,
and what she learned.

Who is this woman?

What exactly
is her role, here?

Is she really
kind of a mastermind?

Or, is she a victim
of circumstances

beyond her control?

Opening statements in the case

against drug kingpin Joaquín
"El Chapo" Guzmán

are being held at
the Federal Courthouse

in Brooklyn this morning.

Guzmán is the head

of the notorious
Sinaloa drug cartel.

The largest drug trafficking
organization in the world.

I was working
as a crime reporter,

and I got a call from my editor.

And he was like,
"You speak Spanish, right?"

And I was like, "Yes."

And he's like, "Do you wanna
cover El Chapo's trial?"

And I immediately said yes!

This is, you know
the Trial of the Century.

I remember a lot of police,

waiting for a war or something.

A lot of journalists outside.

It's the New York press corps,
the national press corps,

it's all
the Spanish language press.

And they're all getting there

before dawn, lined up.

I spent nights sleeping in a
sleeping bag, waiting to get in.

There was this huge energy,

in part because of the fame
and notoriety.

Federal authorities were
terrified that he would somehow

escape, again!

But really, it was
the Trial of the Century

because no capo had
ever done this before.

Gone to trial and had
everything splayed out.

El Chapo pleaded not guilty.

He's facing serious
counts here,

including drug making,
distribution,

running a criminal enterprise.

That he engaged
in murder conspiracy.

Drug and gun charges.

And money laundering.

An avalanche of evidence.

56 witnesses.

Full of graphic testimony
on how prosecutors say

the drug lord carried
out his operation.

Involved in gruesome murders.

Known to personally torture
and kill his enemies.

If Guzmán is found guilty,

he will spend the rest of his
life in a federal prison.

Guys, back up! Come on,
give her some space!

- Come on back!
- Back up!

The more I watched Emma, while
everybody else watched Chapo,

I became convinced she was
a more interesting story.

Thank you. Good luck.

There was lots of debate among
all of us about what exactly

is her role here?

We're analyzing literally
any little tidbit.

Every reaction, every outfit.

We have to make notes,
what she was wearing everyday.

And I did it in my case,
against my will.

Yes, her outfits were great,

but there was more to her
than that.

We would watch her
during the proceedings,

for details that might
somehow implicate her.

If there's a gruesome
murder being discussed!

Each and every one of us in that
courtroom was eagle-eyed

to try to see if there
were tears in her eyes.

She was very stoic.

She didn't react.

She didn't move a nerve
on her face.

That's when you find out
that she's not normal people.

Mm-hmm.

After the trial,

I wanted to see
a different perspective.

So, I went to Mexico.

Emma wasn't there,

but I met up with her family.

I said, you know,
"I've seen the trial,

now I want to see
the other side."

And they said, "Okay."

When she was 17,
Emma wanted to be a model,

and decided to
run for this pageant.

In order to campaign for votes,

she would attend
these local parties.

The parties leading up to the
beauty pageant had a reputation,

a lot of narcos will come to,

you know, watch
the young ladies, right?

These are teenage girls,
and these are men,

some of them rather old men.

Emma meets Chapo

on the dancefloor.

Chapo, at which point
is already a fugitive,

after this violent incident
at the Guadalajara airport.

So in 1993, when Emma
is three years old,

El Chapo is involved in
a high profile shootout,

resulting in the death
of the Cardinal of Mexico.

Chapo is arrested, he is put
in high security prison

and that was the end of it.

Until his first escape,
when she was 11 years old.

And from that moment on,

There was, you know, a bounty
on his head,

and he became a famous narco.

He has this larger
than life outlaw story.

Chapo Guzmán actually invented
the border tunnel.

Drug tunnels, carrying a river
of drugs into the United States.

Everybody was looking
for Chapo.

See, his face was on
the TV, on the newspapers.

Chapo, Chapo, Chapo,
Chapo, Chapo.

Nobody knows how many times
they tried to catch him.

Chapo and Emma continued

their relationship.

The beauty pageant
votes come in,

and she wins.

She is crowned

Reina de Festival in February,

and in July of that same year,

her 18th birthday,
she's married to El Chapo.

When you have an 18 year old

married to one of the most

powerful drug dealers
of all time,

you get about as
little agency as possible.

You know, if you believe in
"Me Too" at all...

18 and 50, that was
the gross power dynamic

from an age perspective,
from a power standpoint.

That's not a man you say no to.

The wedding makes headlines.

Local politicians are there,
there's lots of interest,

so of course,
Mexican authorities,

you know, descend on the town.

The wedding makes headlines.

There's lots of interest,
so of course,

Mexican authorities
descend on the town,

looking for El Chapo.

He was just ahead of the game.

I started with the DEA in 1987,

and by the early 90s,

one of our main targets
was El Chapo Guzmán.

By 2007, he'd already been
indicted in the United States

for trafficking massive
amounts of cocaine.

We always would work with
Mexican authorities.

0600, yes.

The problem was back then,

corruption is such an integral
part of how

the law enforcement worked.

We knew that people were
tipping him off, saying,

"Don't go here,
be sure to go there."

It was a cat-and-mouse game,

except the mouse
had all the cards.

We first heard of Emma right
about the time of the marriage.

A lot of us had daughters
that were Emma's age,

and she's married Chapo,

the most wanted man probably
in the Western Hemisphere,

if not the world.

I think as a parent, you kind
of like get that stomach twist,

"Oh, that's not good!"

After they married,
Emma moves to Culiacán.

It's the capital of Sinaloa,

it's also the capital
of cartel headquarters.

And during this time,
El Chapo's mostly hiding off

in the mountains.

Even though they were both

in Mexico, it was
a long-distance marriage.

So a lot of it happens
over text,

and a lot of it
is actually logistics.

Gaviota.

Gaviota!

Around the time when

Emma was married to El Chapo,

you see this explosion
of brutal, visceral violence

in Mexico's criminal landscape.

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán
is currently at war

with the Juárez Cartel,
with the Gulf Cartel,

and with Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

Local newspapers almost
daily have headlines

of the bloody violence
of the drug cartels.

In the past few years,

Mexico has become one of the
most dangerous places on earth.

Narco-traffickers,

they are the reason for
a lot of death in Mexico,

and in the US.

I believe they don't care
about the people.

A normal people, they care
about people. They don't.

Chapo was in charge
of death squads,

that went to kill
people who were loyal

to the other factions.

That kind of brutal
violence upped the ante.

I'm sure viewers will remember

the tossing of heads
onto a dance floor.

Bodies hanging off bridges
around that time.

That's the terror they bring.
The innocent people mostly,

were in a constant
state of fear or terror.

People want to know what Emma
witnessed, and what she learned

during her time with El Chapo.

So, over the next few years,

Emma and Chapo continue this
long-distance relationship,

while he keeps evading
the authorities.

I think you see Emma take

agency only really
a few times in her early story.

And one of those times
is when she's pregnant

with her twin daughters.

We try to keep a bead

on everyone
that was in his circle.

You did seem
to be focused on Emma.

We get word from a lookout that
Emma and her family members

have come in
to the United States.

We envision Chapo coming
through one of the tunnels,

and coming up
and visiting her and the twins

in the hospital.

And if we were thinking he
was gonna show up and visit,

then one of the cartels he was
at war with

might think he's
gonna show up and visit.

And the last thing we wanted
was another Guadalajara airport

massacre happening
here in the United States.

We envision Chapo coming
through one of the tunnels,

and visiting her and the twins
in the hospital.

Would he do it? I don't know.
It's like playing the lottery,

you can't win unless
you buy a ticket.

We didn't have probable cause

to arrest or detain
them at the time,

and it's not illegal to be
married to a drug lord.

But we set up surveillance
around the hospital,

partially to catch Chapo,

partially as a security to make
sure everything stayed safe.

It's a pretty intimidating

position to be in,
I think, for her.

If rivals are trying to
get to your husband,

and those rivals get hold
of you instead,

it's very common for violence
to be meted out

against the women
of powerful narcos.

Rape is a part of that,

body mutilation
is a part of that.

You know, to send a message
to the powerful men

that they're associated with.

There's a lot of myth

that shrouds Emma's family.

We know much more about sort
of her family

after El Chapo than before.

Her father, he was certainly
trafficking drugs afterwards.

There's text exchanges
that go to that,

that were brought into the court
record at El Chapo's trial.

At this point,

Emma's dealing with a lot.

With the arrest of her father
and brother,

there is this sense
that the Mexican authorities

are closing in.

There would of course
been the fear

that she was going
to also lose her husband.

And then, beyond all that,

also knowing that there
had been other women.

He'd had wives before her,
and never divorced them.

And there's also infidelity.

Reams and reams of cheating.

He didn't do drugs,
he didn't really drink,

but he ate Viagra like candy.
He was addicted to women.

Chapo, he moved

from different hideouts
in the mountains,

but the problem was,
again, women,

when he went from the mountains
to the cities to meet them.

Had he stayed in the mountains,

we would still be looking
for him today.

In 2014, Operation Gargoyle
kicks off.

We're teamed up with CIMAR,
the Mexican Marines.

One of the most highly trained,
efficient Special Forces group

in the world.

The DEA on the ground
there is the strongest

I've ever worked with.

It was kind of the perfect
storm, everything

was coming together.

We get the information
about Culiacán,

that Chapo was in that area.

They find out from informants
that Chapo has seven houses,

all connected by the tunnels
in the sewer system.

And he hides
in different houses.

And, as the team is clearing
the various houses,

they find an RPG, several guns,
tons of methamphetamine,

bunch of plastic bananas
and stuff,

so he could hide cocaine in it.

And they found it, found
the house that Chapo was at.

¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!

They're clearing the house.

And they don't find
anyone inside.

But as they get in,
they find an escape hatch,

underneath the bathtub.

As they're breaching the house,
Chapo and his missus Cicero

went down the tunnel and
took off through the sewers.

He slipped out of a bathroom
trap door, down these stairs,

into these underground tunnels,
as Mexican authorities

try to break down a steel door.

Four days had passed,

it was some people that thought,
"Okay, he's gone."

But the Mexican Marines
and the DEA keep the pursuit

and they keep monitoring
all the communications.

And we find out that
Chapo's in Mazatlán.

El Chapo is in disguise,

and he's wheeled into the hotel
Miramar in a wheelchair.

He's wearing sunglasses,
and he's hunkered down

in the wheelchair.

And they usher him up
to the fourth floor.

They get there,

they find a hotel.

They surround the Miramar.

They're pretty much convinced
there's not a tunnel issue here,

because he's on
the fourth floor.

Chapo was captured

without a shot.

No one was hurt, that's the
biggest victory you could have.

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán,

on the run for 13 years,

his arrest tonight being called

the biggest setback to
the drug trade in three decades.

We were all really surprised
that he hung around,

uh, he stayed in Mazatlán.

It was just amazing to us that
someone who was so

tactically smart would
do something so tactically dumb.

Kind of gave breath to the
theory that Emma

was truly his weakness.

If it was so important
to see her,

that's what got him captured.

Emma was watching her family

drop off like flies.

All the most important men in
her life, gone in a year's time.

And her power, at that time,
was very much rooted

in her connections
to these important men.

So, losing them was going
to forever change her life.

In certain parts

of Mexican society,
you do have this hero worship

around El Chapo.

It's sort of like, "**** you"

to the government and the
systems that keep people down.

If you go to cities
like Culiacán,

if you go to the markets,
you can buy anything from like

caps and keyrings,
and mugs and t-shirts,

to a miniature figurine
of El Chapo with a AK-47.

El Chapo was born
into grinding poverty,

and then made it
onto Forbes rich list.

That, to a lot of people,

is the rags to riches
story to aspire to.

El Chapo has cashed in on drug
smuggling to the tune of

a billion dollars,
according to Forbes Magazine.

He is uh, not available
for interviews,

because he's on the run!

I mean, how could she not

have known about the money?

Yes, there was money.

I think she came to
appreciate the lifestyle

of designer clothes
and nice cars and all of that.

You can't make this life
on the souls of the people

that have been tortured and
killed by the Sinaloa Cartel,

and not expect to have
to answer to it.

If you want to be
like,

"When can we lay the
blame?

When can we say
this was her fault?"

Is she complicit
in her husband's crimes?

At this point,
Emma's in her 20s

and now this is the father
of her children,

so, you know,
what was she supposed to do?

Like, you can't leave
that marriage.

I would imagine for a woman
in her position,

it was very hard to say no

to helping advance
El Chapo's business.

Especially, you know,
when he was in prison.

El Chapo is taken
to a high-security prison

called El Altiplano.

And it's one of
the highest security prisons

in all of Mexico.

He has a cell to himself,

Emma has moved
into a town nearby

and comes and visits often.

But her visits to him
in Altiplano

would later have a huge impact.

On both his life and hers.

And in July
of 2015,

El Chapo goes to his shower...

...and slips down a hole.

And this is all caught, y'know,
on video camera.

Tonight, the top drug dealer
in the world has done it again.

For the second time,
he just staged

a spectacular escape.

I remember just being
completely like, incredulous

that he would escape
in such a fashion.

You just can't make
things like that up.

She can't really
talk about the escape

for fears of, you know,
legal repercussions.

I mean, she's still on probation

and I don't think Emma
wants to draw any more attention

to what her role might have
played in El Chapo's escape.

Tonight, a frantic search
continues for him

as we get a better sense
of the complexity of the tunnel

through which
he made his escape.

He becomes the GOAT
of prisoner escapes.

This is worldwide publicity.

It's the second escape
for the notorious drug kingpin.

El Chapo's escape
raises serious questions

about potential corruption
at that prison.

Everybody was laughing, saying,

"Come on! Chapo escaped again?"

Yep. He did.

Every aspect of this escape
was very well thought out.

Figuring out how far away
they needed to start the tunnel,

the land they would need to get
so they had

full access to that area.

Guzman was last seen
on a security camera

entering a shower area.

He slipped into
a 20-by-20 inch hole,

down a ladder,
into an elaborate tunnel

made of wood and PVC pipe.

And the tunnel itself
is ventilated.

He has a motorbike,

he can just go the mile
distance through the tunnel.

This is easy, this is set up,
this is planned.

It's something that would be
like, written for the movies.

At the time, I was
covering news in Mexico

and the entire press corps
was just like,

disbelieving and amused.

It had to be literally one
of the most embarrassing things

for the Mexican government
in probably decades.

For them to say,
"Okay, now we have him.

Oops, he's gone."

He just goes right
back to the life that he'd had

before he'd been incarcerated.

Today, pictures surfaced
on social media

purporting to show Guzman
after his escape.

It obviously went to his head.

And that actually kind of
worked out in our advantage.

He becomes a little bit more,

almost flaunting
that they can't get him.

He even invites
Kate del Castillo and Sean Penn

to come visit him
while he's in hiding.

To talk about making a movie
about his life.

And there's all these photos
of them together.

Him meeting with Sean Penn
Miss del Castillo,

that was something Chapo would
not have done years before.

And that eventually leads
to Sean Penn's interview.

An article in Rolling Stone.

You don't invite
famous people to come

hang out with you
while you're in hiding

if you're, you know,
really doing it well.

At that point, I think he just
thought he was Teflon.

He just got very sloppy.

I was stunned that he would
risk, uh, our trip,

I was stunned.

Two weeks later, investigators
are hot on the trail

of El Chapo once again.

We're relying heavily
on electronic mine frame,

that's the big thing.

We developed intelligence
that a safe house is being built

for Chapo and Los Muchis.

And we get the information

that Grandma is coming,

and that's the new codename
for Chapo.

And next thing you know,

Chapo ordered
a whole bunch of tacos

and had 'em brought
to the house.

The Mexican Marines
stormed the door.

Immediately,
a firefight breaks out.

This time, he's not
with his wife and children

and he is ultimately
detained and arrested.

El Chapo's capture ends
the biggest manhunt

in Mexican history.

He was apprehended in Mexico

six months after
he tunneled his way out...

El Chapo's capture ends
the biggest manhunt

in Mexican history.

As you looked into his eyes,
you can see the surprise.

You can see the shock.

And to a certain extent,
you can actually see the fear.

For us, it was the ultimate
victory dance.

That's when we knew we won.
No doubt.

When you think back on all
the man hours

and the sweat you put into

locating this
very evil person.

After all the pain and sorrow

and loss of life that Chapo
brought to the United States,

his extradition to the US,

it was a proud moment
for all of us.

There's good and bad
in everybody.

I judge him based on

how he has treated me
all these years.

Tell us how you got
involved Joaquin Guzman.

I took the bar on February 2018
in New York.

And as I was waiting
for the results,

on Craigslist, there was an ad.

Part-time job
for a Spanish speaker,

paralegal,
criminal defence law firm.

So I was like,
"Okay, bingo, that's me."

So when they said,
"Before you accept,

the client is
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman."

I was like, "Awesome, great.
Where do I start?

Now I want to start, like,
tomorrow!"

I mean, you have the biggest
criminal trial of the century.

Attorneys work 30, 40 years
in their career

to land a case like this.

So I saw it as a professional
opportunity right away.

When I met Mr. Guzman,

we had a glass dividing us,

he put his hand on the glass
and I put my hand on the glass,

and that was like,
our first hello, and we talked.

I love talking,
he loves talking, so we clicked.

I met Emma not long
after I met El Chapo.

Emma and I became friends
pretty quickly

because of the amount of time
that we were spending together,

and then she moved to New York

basically when
the trial started.

The trial for
the Mexican drug lord,

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman
is underway.

The police motorcade
taking him to the courthouse

in Brooklyn.

Guzman pleaded not guilty

to 17 counts

including drug trafficking
and murder.

The trial definitely
was a media circus.

The press was there,
waiting every day.

Trying to get a few words
out of her.

I would take Emma
to court every morning.

Excuse me. 'Scuse me.

Take her back home after court.

I think she handled it
really well.

I don't know
what I would have done

had I been in her situation,

I probably would have left
crying almost every day.

I admire her for that, you know.

The first thing
that Chapo would do

when he would get
into the courtroom

was he would turn around
and look for her.

There was that constant longing
and tension between them.

Where they would be making faces
and goo-goo eyes at each other.

At least once or twice,
the judge stopped

the proceedings, like,
"Hey, eyes up here."

Because it would kind of get
a little bit much.

His story is paraded out

and all the characters come in
one by one,

and they tell
their version of events.

Some of the guys wouldn't even
look at Chapo.

But others, you know,
I think one guy kind of like,

touched his heart
and there'd be like,

nods and there'd be like,
appreciation,

it was almost like
a family reunion.

The testimonies against Chapo
mentioned that

he ordered a lot of killings.

Witness testimonies also
portray him as a killer.

And testimonies about enemies

that he ordered
to be buried alive.

We would watch Emma
during the proceedings

to see, how does she respond,
does she seem to already know?

Like, what is this person's
real feeling?

It's obvious who Chapo was.

Everyone knew that
if you crossed Chapo,

you were putting your life
in danger.

Chapo was involved violence,
a lot of violence.

In my opinion,

I believe she had
to at least hear

about the killings.

Or she probably listened
to some orders

given to kill someone
by her husband.

During the whole trial,

she didn't have
any expression of surprise.

Throughout much of the trial,

Emma had been really stoic
until Lucero's testimony.

Lucero was one of the women
in Chapo's trial

who was a lover of his,

but she was also quite
entrenched in the business.

Lucero immediately asserts
ownership over El Chapo.

She refers to him as
"my husband, Joaquin."

And Emma, she's having
a little bit of a hard time.

That's when you saw the woman.

The day after Lucero's
first day of testimony,

everybody looks from Emma
to El Chapo

and we realize that
they're wearing matching

maroon velvet blazers.

It sort of felt like
this was Emma's way of asserting

ownership over her husband.

You're referring to my husband
as your husband,

but he is with me

and he is saying that
through what he's wearing.

Literally after
that day of testimony,

I looked at Emma and I said,

"Oh, what's this
with the jackets?"

And she looked at me
and she smiled and she said,

"Que coincidencia."
What a coincidence.

Let me get the door!
Outta the way. Out of the way.

There was also a cloud
of suspicion around her,

because there's this sense
that any moment,

that she could be implicated.

During the trial,

there were a couple
of mentions of her,

but really Emma
wasn't implicated publicly

until Domaso Lopez.

Damaso Lopez was the godfather

of one of Chapo's twins
with Emma.

He was his right hand
at the end.

He was there with one purpose.

To describe how he escaped.

Who was involved.

This was when other people
in the room started to see

that there was more to Emma
than her curvaceous figure

and her nice outfits.

Damaso Lopez Nunez testified

that Emma did take part
in the escape.

Damaso's orchestrating things
from the outside

while Chapo's orchestrating
things from the inside.

And Emma is that go-between.

Her role intensifies

as the plans continue
to take shape.

She allegedly is quite likely

the very person who sneaks
a GPS device to El Chapo

so that they can determine his
exact coordinates in the cell.

And I think when people realize
that thing that El Chapo

was most famous for...

El Chapo has done it again.

The spectacular escape...

...was in part helped by Emma.

That was an interesting
mindshift.

When people stopped looking
just at Chapo

and started turning to the woman
sitting alone

on the second row in court.

In testimony during
El Chapo's trial,

it comes out that she had a part
in his escape.

She had the option
to never come back.

"Okay, they're talking about me,

I'm going to get
the hell out of here

and good luck finding me
in Mexico."

- Walk away.
- 'Scuse me.

Come on now.

Move out the way of the vehicle!

But she didn't do that.

Hey!

I'm not...
I can't answer that.

They took days deliberating.

Then I remember that, y'know,
we're all just anxious, waiting.

Minutes ago, a federal jury
here in the eastern district

convicted Joaquin "El Chapo"
Guzman Loera

on all counts.

The jury found that Guzman led
the Sinaloa cartel.

And that he's responsible
for the smuggling

of massive amounts of narcotics
into the United States

and violence, including murders,

his conviction will bring
a sentence of life

without the possibility
of parole.

It is a sentence from which
there is no escape

and no return.

Guys! Come on! Come on!

We were disappointed.
Still, we were sad.

But our client Guzman
was the one that kept on saying,

you know what, guys,
you did a great job.

Ultimately, I think they
couldn't get past the fact

that it was "El Chapo" Guzman,
you know.

There was no doubt in my mind
he was going to be convicted.

When he was convicted,
it was a great moment.

What we wanted to do
was show the world

that the rule of law works.

If you ruin lives
and you murder people,

we will come get you,

no matter how big or how rich
or how famous you are,

and you will stand trial,

and you will be punished
if you're found guilty.

To those individuals
out there

that are involved
in drug trafficking as

El Chapo was,

you are not unreachable,

you are not untouchable,

and your day will come.

The wife of the world's
most notorious drug lord,

Emma Coronel Aispuro,
arrested Monday.

Coronel is charged with both
conspiring with her husband

to distribute drugs
and conspiring with El Chapo

to spring him from
a Mexican supermax prison.

She got arrested and I flew
into DC that same night.

After that, then we started
working on the case.

Did she ever consider
going to trial?

No, because she has
two daughters that needed her

and if she went to trial
and lost,

she could have faced
life in prison.

After Emma was arrested,

we began corresponding
while she was incarcerated.

She spends some really gruelling
first few days in Virginia

as she waits for her court date.

She was on her period
when she was arrested

and they gave her like, two pads
the entire four days.

And they also wouldn't let her
take a shower,

and she didn't know
how to ask for a shower

and so she was like,
on the phone

with one of her lawyers, Mariel,

and Mariel is like,
spelling out S-H-O--

"Blanket,"
that was another word

that I helped her with,
because she was cold, so...

She is, you know,
put in solitary,

which of course, they say
they do for her safety

and there was certainly
a safety element to it,

but that's also
incredibly lonely.

The wife of jailed
Mexican drug lord

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman
is reportedly going to plead

guilty this morning.

I'm going to be brief.

She got a 36-month sentence.

Vaya con dios.

The wife of the infamous
Mexican drug lord known

as El Chapo was released
from federal custody today.

As part of her release,
she will have to be supervised

for four years.

And she will have to give up
$1.5 million dollars.

The money issue is really
an interesting...

Chapo asked to turn over more
than 12 and a half billion.

That might not even be
all of what they've accumulated.

And where do you think
the money is?

That's a good question. Um...

I wish I knew.

There was a joke in the team,

that Chapo's money was like

the last scene
of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Somewhere, instead of just being
one crate, there's like,

5,000 crates
stacked full of money

and some little guy's just
pushing them through a warehouse

some place.

You know. It's out there.

And do you think that
she has access to any of it?

You know, I don't know.

That would be incredibly
dangerous for her

because it would only lead to
her getting more time in prison.

I wrote a corrido about Emma,
yeah, a song about Emma.

La Senora.

I'm still a full-time attorney,

but now I also have
another full-time career,

which is singing.

The song is 100 percent
inspired by her.

The message is people
should not judge you

based on one bad season
of your life.

She's a boss of her own destiny,
of her own life.

The video appearance
with Mariel,

Emma is playing the part
of cartel boss

when she clearly wasn't.

She was a cartel boss wife.

That fascinates people too,
about her.

She's a little big enigmatic

and very much controls
the way she projects herself

to the world.

Whether she can escape
the cartel

is sort of a question
of her own making

because she's also so famous

and it's a fame
that she's cultivated.

But I think I would be treading
very carefully from now on,

were I her,

in terms of what she says
about her life

before she was incarcerated.

Many of the people

that she was involved with
during that time

remain in Mexico's
criminal underworld.

So they're going to be
watching very closely,

everything she says
and everything she does.

Though I'm sure she's deeply
conscious of that.

We live in a day and age

where a lot of people
are obsessed with true crime.

It gives you your bad guys,
it gives you your good guys,

it tells you the people
that you get to root for.

The thing is, there's no story
that is that black and white.

And certainly when you have
a 17-year-old

who is married
to a high-powered drug lord,

what was she supposed to do?

She couldn't tell him no.

Is a 17-year-old really capable

of making such
a crucial decision

that's going to impact
the rest of her life?

I don't think
she was mature enough

to make that decision.

But unfortunately,
the way that the world works,

it's something that she's going
to have to live with.

As most people see it,
she chose evil over good.

The war on drugs,
it's already lost.

And around 200 people die

every 24 hours in the US.

By an overdose.

Nobody knows exactly
the number of people

who already died in Mexico
because of the war on drugs.

Narco traffickers

don't see anything wrong.

They don't feel any guilt.

They see Narco traffic
as a normal business.

And people die

because of the nature
of the business.

She was living off the profits

of all the poison that
the Sinaloa cartel had sold.

That's part of the crime.

I think she got a good deal.

And she did her time.

She's not the perfect victim

but she's also not
your quintessential criminal.

She was a pawn in a game

that she very much learned
how to play

and she found a way
to get out of the game.

And most people don't do that.

There's good and there's bad,
like I said.

And I don't think that
some of the life choices

should define a person.

She's learned a lot,

and I think that
at the end of the day,

she is ready
to put this past her

and start fresh
with her daughters.

Is there anything
else that...

No, I think
it's good.