NEW YORK – Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded “not guilty” before Magistrate Judge James R. Cho, to the 17 drug trafficking charges he faces.
Zambada looked tired as he arrived Thursday night from El Paso, Texas, to the Big Apple to face the first part of his trial in the Eastern District Court based in Brooklyn.
The hearing, which lasted just 15 minutes, consisted of the reading of the charges against Zambada, which include several counts of conspiring to traffic drugs into the United States, including fentanyl, leading a criminal organization for several years, use of weapons and money laundering.
A court document issued by prosecutors recounts the crimes faced by the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, whose name has resonated on several occasions in the New York court, especially in the trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the other leader of the same criminal group.
The first formal accusations against Zambada were in 2009, but since then he has been charged on at least 16 occasions, the document says.
Zambada is the fifth defendant in a parent case, USA v. Beltran-Leyva et alfrom which the brothers Arturo and Hector, Ignacio Coronel Villareal, “El Chapo” Guzman and Jesus Zambada-Garcia, brother of “El Mayo” are derived.
The prosecutors’ document recounts the rise of “El Mayo” in what was known as the Mexican Federation, created in the late 1980s.
“The Cartel is a drug trafficking organization based in Sinaloa, Mexico, that since approximately the late 1980s has imported lethal quantities of narcotics (including, but not limited to, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and most recently, fentanyl) into the United States and laundered billions of dollars,” the report says.
The alliance between “El Chapo” and “El Mayo” gave rise, according to US authorities, to the Sinaloa Cartel.
“Since the beginning of his rise to power several decades ago, [‘El Chapo’ y ‘El Mayo’] “They blazed a trail of extraordinary violence that would become a hallmark of the Cartel,” it said. “When the defendant and El Chapo joined forces, they engaged in bloody battles with rival groups, including the Arellano Felix drug trafficking organization, for control of the Tijuana area of Mexico.”
The accusations against “El Mayo” Zambada, for whom the DEA was offering up to $15 million, could lead to life in prison.
“El Mayo” can still reach agreements with federal authorities to avoid trial or obtain better sentencing and prison conditions. His son, Vicente Zambada Nieba, alias “Vicentillo,” did the same and is currently free.
The court document signed by Eastern District Attorney Breon Peace warns that “El Mayo” Zambada is a high-risk escape suspect and a “dangerous” figure for the community.