SAN DIEGO _ A former Mexican legislator who has been linked to notorious cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was charged Thursday in San Diego federal court with conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
The U.S. attorney's office in San Diego said Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez was detained Wednesday morning at the Otay Mesa Cross Border Xpress, a bridge that connects Tijuana's AL Rodriguez International Airport with San Diego.
The complaint says wiretaps from 2013 show Sanchez and a sister communicating with cartel operatives about laundering drug money.
Sanchez is a former legislator in the state of Sinaloa, home base for Guzman and his powerful drug trafficking organization.
Sanchez was accused of using a fake ID to visit Guzman in September 2014 at Mexico's maximum security prison in Altiplano. In July 2015, Guzman escaped from the prison using an elaborately constructed tunnel that led from his cell.
He was recaptured in January 2016 in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. Mexican officials said days before his arrest he had spent New Year's with Sanchez.
Sanchez has become known as the "Chapodiputada" or "The Chapo legislator." She previously represented the Cosala district in the Sinaloa legislature, which is the area of the state where actors Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo met Guzman in his secret hideaway.
Sanchez has denied news reports that she is the drug lord's girlfriend and the mother of one of his children.
She has been linked to various political parties, and in July 2013 won her spot in the Sinaloa legislature through a coalition formed by the National Action Party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution and the Workers' Party.
