The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been released from federal custody after completing a three-year sentence for helping him run his multibillion-dollar criminal empire, the Bureau of Prisons has said.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to three federal offences as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, had been moved from a Texas prison to a California halfway house prior to her release. She will now serve four years of supervised release.

Coronel Aispuro expressed “true regret for any and all harm” when she was sentenced, after pleading guilty to charges including money laundering conspiracy and engaging in transactions with a foreign narcotics trafficker.

She also helped her husband plan a dramatic escape through a tunnel dug underneath a prison in Mexico in 2015 by smuggling a GPS watch disguised as a food item to him, prosecutors have said. This helped those digging the tunnel pinpoint his location and reach him.

El Chapo, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was recaptured the following year. He was sentenced to life behind bars in a US prison in 2019 for a massive drugs conspiracy that spread murder and mayhem for more than two decades.

He insisted his trial in New York was not fair and told the judge his case “was stained”.