Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, faces one charge of conspiracy to
traffic cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana for importation into the
United States, the department said.
She was arrested at Dulles International Airport. Guzman
was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico's most notorious drug
trafficking groups.
He ran an operation that delivered hundreds of tons of
narcotics into the United States and was behind multiple murders of those who
crossed him, according to court filings.
He was extradited to the United States in 2017 to stand
trial, and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison two years later.
Coronel, according to the Justice Department, took part in
cartel activities and also allegedly assisted in two plots to help Guzman
escape from Mexican prison, including the successful first one in 2015.
It was not previously known that US authorities intended to
arrest her.
A dual US-Mexico citizen and the mother of twins by Guzman,
Coronel appeared in court nearly every day of his three-month trial in New
York. She had been barred from all contact with him during more than two years
of pre-trial detention.
But during the trial, each day as he entered and left the
courtroom, Guzman touched his heart and blew her a kiss.
During the trial, there were suggestions that she was
involved in his business and prison escape, but authorities let her come and go
freely.
"I can only say that I have nothing to be ashamed of.
I am not perfect, but I consider myself a good human being who has never hurt
anyone intentionally," she said at the end of the trial.
Guzman was locked up in the highest-security prison in the
United States, the ADX federal prison in Florence, Colorado.
Months later, Coronel appeared on the VH1 reality series
"Cartel Crew," about the lives of people seeking to break away from
families involved in the drug trade. In an episode filmed aboard a luxurious
yacht near Miami, Coronel tells Michael Blanco, the son of Colombian cocaine
queen Griselda Blanco, that she wants to have a normal life and is thinking about
launching a clothing line in the name of her husband.
"Sometimes you just want to do what other people
do," she says while sipping champagne. Coronel is expected to appear by
video conference in federal district court in Washington on Tuesday.
Her US lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, told AFP she would be
pleading "not guilty."
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