NEW YORK — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel who was charged in a U.S. court with drug trafficking, made his first appearance Friday before the judge presiding over his case.
Zambada, 76, appeared at a status conference in federal court in Brooklyn before U.S. District Court Judge Brian Cogan, who sentenced fellow cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to life in prison after he was convicted in 2019 on trafficking charges drugs.
Prosecutors allege that Zambada and Guzmán turned the Sinaloa cartel into a huge producer and smuggler of illegal drugs, bringing huge amounts of drugs into the United States. Zambada pleaded not guilty.
Long wanted by U.S. law enforcement, he was detained in July after arriving on a private plane at a Texas airport with Guzmán’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, according to federal authorities. Guzmán López was charged with drug trafficking in Chicago and also pleaded not guilty.
Since Zambada and Guzmán López were arrested in the US, rival cartel factions have been clashing in the state of Sinaloa. This week, more than a dozen shots were fired at the building that houses a local newspaper in the capital of Culiacan. The newspaper reported that no one was injured.
Separately, U.S. authorities announced charges Thursday against a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who they believe runs a drug trafficking ring from Mexico and is protected by the Sinaloa cartel.
During a status conference Friday, prosecutors told the judge that some of the evidence in the case against Zambada was secret and that his defense attorneys would need permission, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York said.
The judge scheduled Zambada’s next court appearance for January 15.
Earlier this week, in the same court, Cogan sentenced Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public security secretary, to more than 38 years in prison for accepting multimillion-dollar bribes to protect the Sinaloa cartel.
Copyright © 2024 by Associated Press. All rights reserved.
