The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been arrested at a US airport on international drug trafficking charges.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, 31, a regular attendee at her husband’s trial two years ago, was arrested at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia on Monday and is expected to appear in a federal court in Washington DC on Tuesday.

A lawyer for Coronel could not immediately be identified. It was unclear why Coronel, a dual US-Mexico citizen, was in the Washington area.

Coronel’s arrest came two years after a trial in New York where Guzman, now 63, was convicted of trafficking tonnes of drugs into the United States as Sinaloa’s leader, where prosecutors said he amassed power through murders and wars with rival cartels.

He was sentenced in July 2019 to life in prison plus 30 years, which the judge said reflected Guzman’s “overwhelmingly evil” actions. Guzman was sent to ADX Florence in Colorado, the nation’s most secure “Supermax” prison.

Emma Coronel Aispuro in 2019 after a verdict was reached in the trial of her husband Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman at United States Federal Court in New York. Photo: AAP

Coronel was charged on Monday in a one-count complaint with conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines for unlawful importation into the United States.

Prosecutors said Coronel also conspired to aid her husband in his July 2015 escape from the Altiplano prison in Mexico, when he dug a 1.6-kilometre tunnel from his cell, and began plotting a second escape following his capture by Mexican authorities in January 2016.

US and Mexican efforts to fight drug trafficking became strained in October when the US Justice Department brought drug charges against former Mexican defence minister Salvador Cienfuegos.

The Justice Department unexpectedly dropped that case the following month and let Cienfuegos return to Mexico, a move Mexico said would restore trust in the countries’ strained security ties.

Cienfuegos was exonerated two months later when Mexico dropped its own case.

A Mexican official familiar with Coronel’s case, who asked not to be identified, said her arrest appeared to be solely a US initiative, and that Coronel was not wanted in Mexico.

Coronel and Guzman have been married since 2007, when they wed in an ostentatious ceremony in a village in Durango state. At the time, Coronel was an 18-year-old beauty queen.

-AAP