Emma Aispuro, the wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, has been arrested and faces drug charges, Voice of America reports. 

Ms. Aispuro is charged for helping her husband continue to run his drug trafficking cartel while he remains incarcerated. 

She was arrested at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia on Monday. 

The charges levelled against her by the U.S. Department of Justice include conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamines for unlawful importation into the United States. 

She is expected to appear in a federal court on Tuesday (today). 

An affidavit attached to the charges is an affidavit listing her alleged involvement in her husband’s escape from a Mexican prison in 2015 and a second attempted prison break in 2016 before the 63-year-old was extradited to the United States.

When her husband was rearrested following his escape, Ms. Aispuro lobbied the Mexican government to improve her husband’s prison conditions, and when convicted in 2019, she moved to launch a clothing line in his name

Her arrest is the highest-profile U.S. capture of a Mexican on drug charges since former Mexican Defence Minister Salvador Cienfuegos was detained in October, putting a strain on U.S.-Mexico relations.