Mexico City. Ismael The May Zambada, the alleged co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, is expected to appear before a US court on Thursday after pleading not guilty last week to drug trafficking charges brought against him following his dramatic arrest.
Zambada is scheduled to appear at 19:00 GMT before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas. Such hearings typically deal with legal matters such as disclosure of evidence by prosecutors to the defense and pretrial scheduling.
In a major blow to U.S. law enforcement, the septuagenarian Zambada was taken into U.S. custody on July 25 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 38, the son of jailed drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzmán, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel along with Zambada.
Guzman Lopez pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges Tuesday in federal court in Chicago. El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.
The circumstances leading to the arrest of Zambada and Guzman Lopez at Doña Ana County International Airport near El Paso remain unclear.
U.S. officials briefed on the operation said last week that Guzman Lopez tricked Zambada into getting on a plane by telling him they were going to look at real estate in northern Mexico, then 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, saying Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms “forcibly kidnapped” his client near Culiacan in the Mexican state of Sinaloa and then took him to the United States against his will.
Asked Tuesday about Perez’s claims, Guzman Lopez’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said his client was not being charged with kidnapping.
“When the government indicts him, then I’ll take notice,” Lichtman told reporters. “When lawyers who are trying to score points with the media make accusations … it doesn’t move the ball forward.”
In the Texas case, which was filed 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 They kidnapped a Texas resident in 2009 to pay for the loss of a seized shipment of marijuana, and kidnapped a U.S. citizen and two of his family members in 2010. Both victims were killed, according to prosecutors.
Zambada also faces charges in four other federal jurisdictions, including the Brooklyn district of New York, where El Chapo was tried and convicted. In the Brooklyn case, Zambada is accused of conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that is fueling an addiction epidemic across the United States.
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– 2024-08-08 15:36:13
