Wife of 'El Chapo' throws lavish Barbie-themed birthday party for daughters as drug kingpin awaits trial
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s wife threw a lavish birthday party for their twin daughters. (Reuters)
As notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman sat in a New York detention center awaiting trial, his ex-beauty queen wife threw the couple's twin daughters a lavish birthday party south of the border -- but critics slammed the celebration as being paid for with "blood money."
Guzman’s wife, Emma Coronel, 29, threw the Barbie-themed party for her twin daughters' 7th birthdays. Photographs of the bash showed gold chandeliers, life-size Barbie doll cut-outs, pink balloon arches, a throne, carnival rides and a dessert table with fancy, mouth-watering treats.
Coronel posted a photo on her Instagram standing in front of the hot pink dessert table. She also posted a video of the party which appeared to have been located in Culiacán, the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Birthday of my princesses,” Coronel wrote.
Pictures of the bash drew outrage from some social media users, who were angry Coronel would boast about an extravagent party paid for with “blood money,” The Washington Post reported.
The U.S Treasury Department and Mexican officials have attempted to find Guzman’s assets but have not been successful, the Los Angeles Times reported. Guzman, the Sinaloa drug cartel leader, allegedly ran a “billion-dollar narcotics empire.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“You know that this was not possible without who knows how many deaths and tortures in Mexico, right?” one social media user commented.
“Pure elegance!!” another person wrote, sarcastically. “Pity where the money came from.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Photographer Antonio Tizoc, who snapped pictures for the birthday party, also posted the images on his Instagram page. He soon said he was “attacked” due to the pics.
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“They have attacked me,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “But in Culiacán it’s really normal to have parties like this. Rich and poor, we like big parties.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Guzman and Coronel, who is 32 years younger than the drug kingpin, married in July 2007 on her 18th birthday. Coronel was born in the U.S. but raised in Mexico, the Washington Post reported. Her twin daughters have American citizenship because she traveled to Los Angeles to give birth.
Guzman is currently in solitary confinement in the Manhattan Detention Center after being extradited to the U.S. in January 2017 to “face drug trafficking and conspiracy charges,” Reuters reported.
His trial is slated to begin Nov. 5.