Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, alleged Mexican drug kingpin, to appear in US court

[August 01, 2024]  By Jack Queen and Luc Cohen

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the notorious alleged co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, is expected to appear in a U.S. court on Thursday after pleading not guilty last week to drug trafficking charges following his dramatic arrest.

Zambada is due to appear for a status conference before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, federal court at 1 p.m. MDT (1900 GMT). Such hearings normally deal with legal matters such as the disclosure of evidence by prosecutors to the defense and preliminary scheduling.

In a major coup for U.S. law enforcement, the septuagenarian Zambada was taken in to U.S. custody on July 25 alongside 38-year-old Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of the legendary imprisoned drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel with Zambada.

Guzman Lopez pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges on Tuesday in Chicago federal court. El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.

The circumstances leading up to the arrests of Zambada and Guzman Lopez at the Dona Ana County International Jetport near El Paso remain murky.

U.S. officials briefed on the operation said last week that Guzman Lopez duped Zambada into boarding a plane by telling him they were going to scope out real estate in northern Mexico, only to fly north of the border - where Guzman Lopez planned to turn himself in, but Zambada did not.

Zambada's lawyer Frank Perez disputed that version of events, asserting that Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms "forcibly kidnapped" his client near Culiacan in Mexico's Sinaloa state and then brought him to the United States against his will.

When asked about Perez's assertions on Tuesday, Guzman Lopez's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said his client was not being accused of kidnapping.

Undated police handout picture shows Ismael Zambada. Courtesy of the Procuraduria General de la Republica/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

"When the government accuses him, then I'll take notice," Lichtman told reporters. "When lawyers who are trying to score points with the media make accusations ... doesn't move the ball forward."

In the Texas case, which was brought in 2012, Zambada was charged with racketeering conspiracy and murder in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Prosecutors said cartel members under the leadership of Zambada and El Chapo kidnapped a Texas resident in 2009 to answer for the loss of a seized marijuana shipment, and kidnapped a U.S. citizen and two members of his family in 2010. Both victims were murdered, prosecutors said.

Zambada also faces charges in four other federal jurisdictions, including the Brooklyn borough of New York City, where El Chapo was tried and convicted. In the Brooklyn case, Zambada is charged with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, a lethal synthetic opioid fueling an epidemic throughout the U.S.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in El Paso, Texas, and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Matthew Lewis)

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