Dámaso López, 55 years, alias The Lawyer , went from being the compadre of the Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, to being the one who denounced him a year ago to reduce his sentence.
Whoever was considered the successor of El Chapo at the head of the Sinaloa Cartel , was arrested in Mexico City in May 2017 and extradited to the United States in 2018.
The Godfather of one of the twins of Coronel and Guzmán Loera was sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking in a Virginia court , but in 2020 declared against El Chapo in a Brooklyn court, so his sentence was reduced to 14 years in prison and may be released in 258946 . López continues to provide information on other cases related to the Sinaloa Cartel.
López went from being a municipal policeman in Culiacán, Sinaloa, to serve as deputy director of the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, from where El Chapo escaped in 2001. He has also been linked to the murder of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez in Culiacán, Sinaloa, on May 2017.
The role of ‘El Licenciado’ in the arrest of Coronel
Between the evidence FBI Agent Eric S. McGuire included in an affidavit filed Wednesday of February to obtain the arrest warrant against Guzmán Loera’s wife, Emma Coronel, there is a letter that shows that she acted as a messenger between him, his partners and his children.
McGuire points out on multiple occasions in said document the fundamental role that a certain cooperating witness had in the arrest of Coronel number 1. A source from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) confirmed to Noticias Telemundo that the witness referred to by the FBI agent is Dámaso López.
‘El Licenciado’ helped ‘El Chapo’ elope
Agent McGuire also details how Coronel allegedly helped her husband to escape from the Mexican maximum security prison of the Altiplano in July 2015.
At that time El Chapo instructed the Lawyer , through Coronel, to “buy a warehouse near the Altiplano prison, firearms and an armored truck, ”while their children had to get a GPS watch to know the exact coordinates of El Chapo inside the prison and to locate his exact whereabouts to build the tunnel.
“Cooperating witness 1 told me that Coronel agreed to help Guzmán escape from Altiplano through an underground tunnel. According to cooperating witness 1, Coronel met with him and asked him to help Guzmán escape from the Altiplano prison. Collaborating witness 1 agreed to help “, describes the document.
The FBI agent assures in the document that Colonel “provided cooperating witness number 1 with about $ 55, 000 dollars and instructed him / her to arrange the purchase of a property near the prison ”. To do this, he would have spent a total of about a million dollars.
The Lawyer and Colonel had planned a third escape for El Chapo that never materialized since he was transferred from jail.
The lawyer was the one who pointed out that Coronel was a messenger for El Chapo while he was imprisoned between 2012 Y 2014. In the Altiplano, Coronel is the one who can go to visit him and, on those visits, he would pass him little pieces of paper in his own hand with messages addressed to his different partners.
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. The lawyer also pointed it out as part of her husband’s escape in 2001.
McGuire adds that Coronel received the money from the sale of more than five kilos of heroin by Cleto – a Durango-based drug trafficker who produces heroin for Guzmán Loera. – and cooperating witness 1.
“I know from my investigation that Cleto and cooperating witness 1 provided Coronel with the drug product of more than 5 kilograms of heroin,” McGuire says in the prosecution.
What if Emma Coronel collaborates with the authorities?
In case Colonel collaborate with the United States Government, your sentence may be reduced . This was explained to Noticias Telemundo by criminal lawyer Alfredo Izaguirre.
Coronel, arrested on Monday in the state of Virginia, faces a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment, in addition to a possible fine of 10 million dollars, if he is guilty of the criminal drug trafficking charge against him.
The lawyer pointed out a fact that shows that she would be cooperating: her lawyer did not fought bail but agreed to leave her in jail. “That is an indication that she did it voluntarily” assured Izaguirre.