Inés Coronel Barreras was born on 21 January 1968 in Canelas, Durango, Mexico. He was also known by his alias "El Uno" and "El Suegro". His wife is Blanca Estela Aispuro Aispuro, and his daughter Emma Coronel Aispuro is married to Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and once Mexico's most-wanted drug lord. Coronel Barreras was also related to Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel Villarreal, a former Sinaloa Cartel chief who was killed in a firefight with Mexican security forces in 2010. Coronel Barreras was officially a cattle rancher at the rural community of La Angostura, Canelas, Durango. However, people from the local area stated that he reportedly cultivated marijuana and opium poppies. On 9 January 2013, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Coronel Barreras under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, for his involvement with the Sinaloa Cartel's illicit activities and coordinating drug trafficking operations for Guzmán. The designation also sanctioned Damaso López Núñez, another Sinaloa Cartel chief who worked directly with Guzmán. Under the Kingpin Act, the Office of Foreign Assets Control virtually froze all the assets Coronel Barreras had in the U.S. and prohibited U.S. citizens from doing any kind of business with him. His area of operations was in Durango and Sonora, particularly in the municipalities of Agua Prieta, San Luis Río Colorado, and Cananea, where he coordinated marijuana plantations and drug trafficking shipments through the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.
Arrest
On 30 April 2013, the Mexican Federal Police arrested Coronel Barreras, his son Inés Omar Coronel Aispuro, and three other people at a warehouse in Agua Prieta, Sonora without a single shot fired. The authorities seized four automatic rifles, a handgun, and at least 550 pounds of cannabis at the scene. At the time of his arrest, the authorities alleged that Coronel Barreras coordinated drug trafficking shipments for the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico through the Arizona border crossing, and that he played an important role in the overall operations of Guzmán. That afternoon, he was flown from Sonora to the Mexico City International Airport in a Boeing 727 owned by the Federal Police. He was then transferred to the SEIDO, Mexico's anti-organized crime investigatory agency, for his legal declaration. Coronel Barreras was later imprisoned at a federal penitentiary in Tamaulipas state, but was re-transferred to one in Sinaloa on December 2013.
On April 28, 2017, a federal judge in Sonora found Coronel Barreras guilty of marijuana trafficking and for being in possession of military-exclusive firearms. He was convicted to 10 years, 5 months, and 9 days in prison, and was ordered to forfeit $MXN15,930. The sentence also extended to his son, who was convicted of marijuana trafficking and given 10 years and 3 months, and ordered to forfeit $MXN15,542.
