Money, infidelity, arrests, syphilis: the lives of six wives of the most dangerous gangsters in history

How does it feel to be the wife of the number one criminal? Someone replaced their spouses in business and unleashed criminal wars, someone quietly languished and prayed for a sinner husband. Read the stories of the wives of Al Capone, Pablo Escobar and other legendary bandits.

May Capone

Al Capone married at the age of 19 — to an 18-year-old Irish woman May Josephine Coughlin, who gave birth to a son from a gangster before the wedding. Capone infected the bride with syphilis, which he suffered from for the rest of his life. Their child was born with this disease and a mastoid infection. The baby underwent brain surgery, remaining partially deaf for the rest of his life. Despite this, May Josephine loved her husband and remained loyal to the mafia until his death in 1947 - from a stroke and pneumonia, not an enemy bullet.

May lived a long life and died in 1986, at the age of 89. Albert Capone, as an adult, changed his surname to Brown, lived an almost law-abiding life (he spent two years for petty theft), became the father of four daughters and died in 2004.

Alice Diamond

Religious and modest Alice Diamond did not approve of the activities of her husband, gangster Jack Legs Diamond, but she was devoted to him and forgave infidelities. Alice prayed for her husband, and Jack had a lot of sins on his conscience. He was one of the most famous bootleggers in New York and Philadelphia during prohibition. Jack not only smuggled alcohol, but also kidnapped and tortured people and dealt with competitors.

Diamond himself was attacked more than once. Once a gangster was hit by five bullets, but he not only survived, but managed to get out of the hotel room and call for help. For such survivability, the bandit was called unkillable, but he did not justify the nickname. In 1931, Diamond was shot by two unknown men in a hotel room in New York. The mafia, the police, and even politicians were suspected of ordering the murder.

Two years after Jack's death, his widow, who lived quietly and did not keep in touch with the mafia, was shot dead in her apartment in Brooklyn. Alice's killers were not found.

Maria Escobar

In 1976, an aspiring Colombian drug lord, 27-year-old Pablo Escobar, married 15-year-old Maria Victoria Henao Vallejo, who was expecting his first child. His wife has always supported Escobar, despite his numerous infidelities (for example, in the last years of his life, Pablo had a serious affair with journalist and model Virginia Vallejo).

Maria Escobar was aware of her husband's affairs, so after Escobar's death in a shootout with the police in 1993, the widow and her children hid under false names. Escobar's family was still caught, and Maria spent a year and a half in prison, but the authorities did not find evidence of her illegal activities. Freed, Maria changed her name and went into the shadows. So did her daughter.

Escobar's 41-year-old son Juan Pablo is an architect, he lives in Buenos Aires with his wife and daughter. He remembers his father with warmth, calling him a caring and sentimental family man. For example, once, hiding with the children from the government, Escobar lit a bonfire of bills in the mountains and burned about two million dollars to warm the kids.

Actually, attachment to the family and ruined the cocaine king. At the time of his death, Escobar had been on the run for almost a year and had not seen his family, but in honor of his birthday, he decided to call home and talk to his son for 5 minutes. According to this call, the authorities figured out Escobar's location and liquidated him a few hours later.

Danubia Rangel

The wife of Brazilian drug lord Antonio Bonfim Lopez represented her husband at large after his arrest in 2011, until she herself was behind bars. Danubia was arrested in 2017. By this time, she had unleashed one of the most terrible criminal wars in Rocinha, the largest favela of Rio de Janeiro. Now Danubia is waiting for 28 years in prison — for drug trafficking and human trafficking.

Emma Coronel Aispuro

Emma married Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loer in 2007 when she was 18 years old. She became the fourth wife of 50-year-old El Chapo (Shorty) — the most dangerous criminal in the world (before his capture in 2016). In 2012, Emma gave birth to twin girls from Shorty. At that time, Joaquin Guzman headed Mexico's largest drug cartel, Sinaloa, and was included in the lists of the most powerful and richest people in the world according to Forbes.

Vanity ruined the drug lord. Hiding from the authorities, El Chapo communicated with Hollywood actors and producers, dreaming that a film would be made about him. So, a meeting with Sean Penn helped the authorities track down the criminal, although he achieved his goal: in 2017, the TV series "El Chapo" was released.

Emma Coronel pays dearly for her love for El Chapo. In the summer of 2016, two of her nephews, aged 19 and 13, were shot dead in Mexico.

Faina Commissar

Vyacheslav Ivankov, nicknamed the Jap, left for the USA in the early 90s, where he led the Russian mafia. There, the thief-in-law met an immigrant from Kiev, Faina Komissar. She was waiting for Ivankov when he was in an American prison, returned to Russia with her husband when the Jap was deported, and was there until his death.

Ivankov was shot at on July 29, 2009 in Moscow, he died two months later in hospital without regaining consciousness. After the death of the bandit Faina, the Commissioner did not communicate with the press, and the psychic Nicole Kuznetsova began to claim the title of the widow of the Jap.