How ‘monster’ El Chapo’s shameless wife switched cartel for catwalk as she cashed in on infamy… and she’s NOT alone

POSING on the beach in a sequinned bikini, at first glance Emma Coronel looks like your typical lifestyle influencer. However the brunette beauty, now 36, has a murky past – she is actually a convicted drug trafficker, ‘trap queen’ and wife of notorious jailed drugs kingpin, El Chapo. Emma Coronel has launched an Instagram career – despite being a convicted felon Coronel’s husband El Chapo is responsible for one of Mexico’s biggest drug empires Credit: Instagram Since being released from prison in 2023 after serving less than three years for drug trafficking and money laundering, Coronel has become a de facto ‘celebrity’. That’s despite her 69-year-old husband, co-founder of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, being so violent he would bury people alive and was once disappointed he didn’t get to torture someone with a hot iron. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! It was also testified in court he would beat them for hours before driving them to the site of a huge bonfire wherehe shot them and burned their bodies. While he’s serving life plus 30 years in prison for multiple counts of drug trafficking running a criminal enterprise, money laundering conspiracy, murder conspiracy and firearms offences, the couple are separated. Now, her 592,000-follower strong Instagram page proudly shows pictures of her modelling, horse-riding and doing gym workouts. In February this year she even shared a media release about a new television series in production detailing the life of her husband, as told from her point of view. Coronel was a Mexican beauty queen when she met the ruthless El Chapo who twice escaped from prison Credit: EuroPics – CEN Mia and Olivia Flores call themselves ‘soccer mums’ – but they’ve both been jailed for cartel activity Credit: CNBC She also tells how she’s writing a memoir about her time in prison – while 2,000 people are believed to have died in street violence in Sinaloa, Mexico since 2024. El Chapo – who escaped from prison twice, which US authorities claim she helped with – is currently serving life plus 30 years. The Sinaloa Cartel was thrust into the news again this week after its other co-founder El Mayo, 78, was jailed for life after being convicted of drugs offences. The cartel was also responsible for billions of dollars’ worth of drugs, mostly cocaine, being imported across the Mexican-US border every year between 1980 and 2024. During El Chapo’s 2019 trial, his former bodyguard Isaías Valdez Ríos turned on him while giving evidence, revealing the now-69-year-old buried victims of rival cartels alive. Ríos said El Chapo was displeased when he discovered one prisoner had already been tortured with a hot iron before he arrived. But at the time dual Mexican-US citizen Coronel, who met El Chapo when she was 17, steadfastly stood by him. She arrived daily in court in designer clothes, flanked by bodyguards until she herself was arrested by the US authorities and jailed – but escaped with a plea deal despite a litany of charges against her. Her court appearances led to her being dubbed the ‘Kardashian of Sinaloa’ by the press. But ex-beauty queen Coronel, who married El Chapo on her 18th birthday when he was 50 and has twin daughters with him, says it was true love. In 2019, she shared a glimpse of her life during an incredibly controversial appearance on the now-cancelled reality TV show, Cartel Crew. Sitting on a yacht, she said: “They judge us without knowing us. It’s hard because sometimes you just want to do what you see everyone around you doing.” The show faced huge backlash. US politician Senator John Kennedy said: “Her husband is a monster, who was once the second most wanted fugitive in the world behind Osama bin Laden.” A truck burns in Sinaloa state, the home of the Sinaloa Cartel which El Chapo and El Mayo co-founded Credit: AP Sandra Avila Beltran, who appears now to have a TikTok page, was born into cartel royalty Credit: Getty But, since her release from prison, she doesn’t seem deterred to seek stardom and cash in on her and her husband’s infamy, although she did apologise for his actions saying: “I stand in solidarity with those who have lost a loved one, who have suffered.” She’s not the only ‘cartel Wag’ to opt for a life in the spotlight. Sisters-in-law Olivia Flores, 50, and Mia Flores, 45, are married to twins Margarito and Pedro Flores, 45, who were the Sinaloa Cartel’s most powerful US drug distributors. The twins turned on El Chapo, acting as undercover double agents and were jailed for 14 years. Their wives, jailed for more than three years, cashed in on their experience, jointly writing a book called “Cartel Wives” and carried out an interview with 50 Cent – despite being under witness protection. They’ve also launched a podcast called Surviving El Chapo: The Twins Who Stole a Kingdom. “To our kids’ friends, we’re just average soccer mums,” they say. “In truth, we’re the wives of identical twin brothers who are almost single-handedly responsible for the meteoric rise of narcotics in the United States over the last two decades.” Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel was pictured holding a golden gun – she joined El Mencho’s infamous cartel as a teenager Credit: Unknown Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel, known as ‘La Catrina’, pouting in a social media picture Credit: CEN Meanwhile, ex-drug runner and ‘cartel royalty’ Sandra Ávila Beltrán appears to have switched drugs for skincare, with a person appearing to be her flaunting her routine on TikTok and gathering a following of nearly 485,000 in the process. While less cultivated than Coronel’s Instagram, Beltrán’s social media is no less bizarre, and she was actually born into the cartel life. Known as ‘La Reina del Pacífico’ – which translates as ‘Queen of the Pacific’ – she grew up surrounded by drug lords. In the ‘90s and early ‘00s Beltrán, now 65 and living in Guadalajara, Mexico, organised the distribution of cocaine through Mexico and played a major part in the build-up of the Sinaloa Cartel. However, she was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to seven years for trafficking cocaine. It was later revealed a doctor had been allowed into her cell… to give her Botox. She’s had tragedy strike her too. Her first husband was shot, the second stabbed through the heart and her brother tortured to death. Speaking about being on the run she told The Guardian after being released from jail: “It is tiring. Very tiring. We each have our own essence, our personality, which is difficult.” El Chapo – who is currently serving a life sentence plus 30 years Credit: AP:Associated Press Coronel has taken up modelling following her release Credit: Newsflash Elsewhere, pictured pouting in selfies on a now-closed Instagram page Maria Guadalupe Lopez Esquivel, 21, could have been any other young woman. Only she was a deadly member of the famous Mexican Jalisco New Generation Cartel, headed by the bloodthirsty El Mencho who was killed in a hail of bullets last February, aged 59. Esquivel, known as ‘La Catrina’, was just 17 when she joined, and would pose in shocking pictures holding golden guns. But her final photograph in January 2020, taken minutes before she died, was rather different – slumped in the street, covered in blood and with her arm reaching out for help. It’s a sorry ending for a woman who posted glam pics on Instagram – and proof that a far more sinister reality can lie behind social media worthy gym workout videos and carefully cultivated selfies. Comment now