Enchiladas have always been the way to the heart of El Chapo.
Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, once fell in love with a prison cook when he was first sent to prison in 1993 for serving “enchiladas suizas” the way his mother made them – the Sinaloan style, smothered in tomato sauce and cream and dripping melted cheese.
Now, a new book reveals that El Chapo, 64, was won by his current wife, leggy 32-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro, after she cooked him her own enchilada recipe while the two were dating in her home state of Durango.
El Chapo met Coronel Aispuro in 2006 at a country dance near her hometown in La Angostura. She claims she had no idea he was the feared leader of the Sinaloa cartel and a fugitive from justice. “He never bought me huge gifts or other big things,” Coronel Aispuro told Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez for the book “Emma and the Other Narco Women” (Grijalbo Publishing), due out Jan. 25. of his… He never broadcast. He behaved like any normal person.”
Although she was still a minor in a traditional rural family, her parents let her go out on dates with El Chapo, who took her to regional dances. “We danced and talked,” Coronel told Hernandez. One day she cooked him his favorite dish, and El Chapo knew he had found the woman of his dreams
“Perhaps El Chapo sought out his mother among all the women he knew,” Hernandez wrote.
El Chapo was born to an impoverished family in La Tuna, in a remote region of Sinaloa state. The eldest of six children, he only attended school until the third grade before being forced to earn money for his family. His father took him to the family’s small marijuana plantation when he was seven years old to help him plant seeds. His mother, a housewife, cooked for the family.
During the trial of El Chapo in Brooklyn federal court, it was revealed that Coronel had aided Aispuro in her husband’s escape from a maximum-security prison in Mexico and helped him deliver messages to the Sinaloa cartel. She was tried in a DC federal court last year and sentenced to three years behind bars. Meanwhile, El Chapo’s mother, Maria Consuelo Loera Perez, 93, remains devoted to her son, who is currently serving a life sentence for drug trafficking and murder at a maximum-security facility in Colorado.
When he was detained in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Correctional Center two years ago, Loera Perez obtained permission from US authorities to visit him. She said she hoped to bring his favorite dish.
“He likes enchiladas,” she told Mexican reporters when the humanitarian visa came in in June 2019. She also thanked Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for his personal intervention in her mission.