Powerful Mexican cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada agrees to be transferred from Texas to New York for his trial

A powerful leader of a Mexican drug cartel, who has been held in Texas since his arrest in the U.S. last summer, is not resisting being transferred to New York to stand trial, according to court documents filed Thursday.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada76, co-founder of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested together with Joaquin Guzman Lopeza son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman,” after landing at an airport near El Paso on July 25. They face multiple drug charges in the U.S. and remain in jail.

Federal prosecutors in Texas the court asked last month to transfer Zambada to the New York jurisdiction, which includes Brooklyn, where the elder Guzmán was convicted in 2019 of drug possession and conspiracy and was sentenced to life in prison.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso had issued an order Wednesday denying the request to move to New York. But prosecutors filed a motion Thursday saying Zambada and his attorneys agreed to the move, and subsequent court filings confirmed that.

The transfer is pending approval from Cardone, who late Thursday afternoon canceled a hearing on the status of his case that was scheduled for Monday in El Paso.

Zambada is facing multiple charges. So far, he has appeared in a U.S. federal court in El Paso, where he has pleaded not guilty to several drug trafficking charges.

If prosecutors get their way, Zambada’s case in Texas will proceed after the New York one.

In New York, Zambada is accused of running a criminal organization, being involved in a murder conspiracy, drug offenses and other crimes.

Strange twist in the saga of the cartel leaders

In a unexpected turnLast month, Mexican prosecutors announced they would charge Guzmán with apparently kidnapping Zambada. The younger Guzmán apparently wanted to turn himself in to U.S. authorities, but may have taken Zambada as a prize to facilitate an eventual plea agreement.

Federal prosecutors released a statement saying “an arrest warrant has been prepared” for Guzmán on kidnapping charges.

But it also cited another charge under a section of Mexico’s penal code that defines what he did as treason. That section of the law says treason is committed “by those who illegally kidnap a person in Mexico to hand them over to the authorities of another country.”

This clause was apparently prompted by the kidnapping of a Mexican doctor wanted for alleged involvement in the torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Kiki Camarena in 1985.

Nowhere in the affidavit does it mention that the younger Guzmán was a member of the Chapitos — “little Chapos” — faction of the Sinaloa cartel, made up of Chapo’s sons, which smuggles millions of doses of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the United States, causing about 70,000 overdose deaths each year. According to a 2023 U.S. Justice Department indictment, the Chapitos and their cartel partners used corkscrews, electrocution and hot peppers to smuggle torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers.”

Authorities said last month that the murders of at least 10 people in Sinaloa appear to be linked to infighting within the world’s largest drug cartel, confirming fears of repercussions following the arrest of Zambada and Guzmán.

El Chapo, the founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado after he… convicted in 2019 for drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related crimes, among other things.

Last year, El Chapo sent an “SOS” message to the President of Mexico, claiming that he had been a victim of “psychological abuse” in prison.