Mexican cartel leader ‘El Mayo’ Zambada pleads not guilty to US charges

NEW YORK (AP) — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a powerful leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, pleaded not guilty Friday to U.S. drug trafficking and murder charges.

Zambada, who participated in a court hearing through a Spanish-language interpreter, did not speak except to give yes-or-no answers to a judge’s standard questions about whether he understood various documents and procedures and how he felt — “fine, fine,” he said. His attorneys entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Zambada has been wanted by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades and has been in custody in the U.S. since July 25. On July 25, he landed in a private jet at an airport outside El Paso with another fugitive cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán López, federal authorities said.

Zambada later wrote in a letter that he had been forcibly kidnapped in Mexico and brought to the United States by Guzmán López, a son of imprisoned Sinaloa co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho ordered Zambada held until trial. His lawyers did not request bail, and U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn asked the judge to keep him in custody.

“He was one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, drug lords in the world,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro said. “He co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel and was at the top of the drug trade for decades.”

Zambada sat quietly listening to the interpreter. When he left the courthouse after the short hearing, he appeared to accept some help getting out of a chair, and then walked out slowly but unaided.

Sketch artists were seated in the small courtroom, but all other journalists could only watch via a closed-circuit camera system due to the lack of seating.

In court and in an earlier letter to the judge, prosecutors said Zambada oversaw a large-scale and violent operation that included an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a private security force that almost resembled an army, and a corps of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture.

Prosecutors say he ordered the murder of his cousin, among other things, just a few months ago.

“A U.S. prison cell is the only thing that can stop the defendant from committing further crimes,” Navarro said.

Zambada had previously pleaded guilty to the charges at a Texas court hearing.

His surprise arrest has sparked fighting in Mexico between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel. Several people have been killed in gun battles. Schools in businesses in Culiacan, the Sinaloa capital, have been closed because of the fighting. The fighting is believed to be between factions loyal to Zambada and those led by other sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was convicted in the U.S. in 2019 on drug and conspiracy charges and sentenced to life in prison.

It remains unclear why Guzmán López surrendered to U.S. authorities and took Zambada with him. Guzmán López is now awaiting trial on a separate drug trafficking charge in Chicago, where he has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court.