Twins born in California as fugitive father hides in Mexico

The beauty queen wife of the man who replaced Osama Bin Laden as the world’s most wanted criminal recently gave birth to his twin daughters in the comfort of a public hospital in Los Angeles, it emerged this week.

Los Angeles birth records reveal Emma Coronel, 22, gave birth to twin girls in Antelope Valley Hospital on August 15. Their father? The head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the most sought-after man in both Mexico and the United States, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

His wife Coronel traveled freely to California in July and returned to Mexico after their twins were born. As a dual citizen she was permitted to enter the United States and use its public medical facilities. Having been born in California, the children will also be entitled to U.S. citizenship.

U.S. law enforcement officials closely followed Coronel’s movements, but despite the identity of her husband, they made no arrest because there are no charges against her.

Guzman, 54, whose nickname means “Shorty,” measures about 5 feet, 6 inches. A legendary multibillionaire and the fugitive head of the Sinaloa cartel, he married former beauty queen Coronel on her eighteenth birthday at a lavish wedding in Durango in 2007.

Believed to be Guzman’s third or fourth wife, Coronel is the niece of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, another famous drug lord who was killed by the Mexican Army in Guadalajara in July 2010.

Although Coronel could undoubtedly have provided useful information on her husband’s whereabouts, drug agents have said apprehending Guzman is less a problem of how to find him but more a problem of how Mexican troops can seize him.

The diminutive drug lord was arrested in 1993, but famously escaped from Jalisco’s Puente Grande prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry basket. He is now thought to be hiding in the isolated mountainous regions of central Mexico with a small army of well-armed security personnel.

In November 2010, Forbes Magazine listed Guzman as the 60th most powerful person on earth and the world’s 937th richest man.

U.S. authorities have posted a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to Guzman’s arrest, alleging that his Sinaloa cartel now controls the bulk of cocaine and marijuana smuggled into the United States from Mexico and Colombia. On May 6, following the death of Osama Bin Laden, Guzman became the FBI and Interpol’s most wanted person.