Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has been imprisoned by the United States District Court in Washington, D.C.
She was sentenced to three years in jail on Tuesday after pleading guilty to assisting her husband in running his multibillion-dollar enterprise.
Coronel Aispuro is also accused of assisting her husband in planning a daring escape through a tunnel created beneath a Mexican jail in 2015 by smuggling a GPS watch to him disguised as a food item.
During a hearing in federal court in Washington, prosecutors sought four years in jail.
However, Judge Rudolph Contreras imposed a shorter-term, saying her role was a small piece of a much larger organisation.
The charges include knowingly and willfully conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine for several years.
She also pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy charge and to engage in transactions with a foreign narcotics trafficker.
The 31-year-old was arrested in February at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and has been in jail since then.
Prosecutors said Coronel Aispuro “worked closely with the command-and-control structure” of the Sinaloa cartel.
She also conspired to distribute large quantities of drugs, knowing they would be smuggled into the U.S.