Zambada, 76, was ordered held pending trial at a brief arraignment in federal court in Brooklyn, where he is charged with 17 counts of drug trafficking, firearms offenses, and money laundering. It was the fifth superseding indictment for a man authorities believe was the brains behind the cartel, building it into a voracious global drug-trafficking and criminal syndicate with his partner and co-defendant, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman before El Chapo’s arrest in 2016.
Zambada appeared frail and gave curt responses to U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho in the Eastern District of New York.
Asked through a translator if he was indeed Ismael Zambada, the reputed kingpin replied, “Sí, señor.”
Accused Mexican former drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada sits with his attorney Frank Perez, at the courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. September 13, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg Jane Rosenberg, REUTERS
When the judge asked how he was feeling, Zambada replied, “Fine, fine,” according to a person familiar with the proceedings.
Zambada’s lawyer Frank Perez entered the plea on his behalf. Perez did not respond to requests for comment but said outside the courtroom that his client expected to go to trial rather than enter into a plea agreement with the government.
“It’s a complex case,” Perez said , according to the Associated Press.
The 'founder and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel'
Justice Department officials described Zambada’s arraignment as a major step forward in the U.S. war against Mexican drug cartels that in recent years have flooded the U.S. with the synthetic opioid. Fentanyl, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, and other opioids killed more than 160,000 in the past two years alone, the CDC said.
“El Mayo, the co-founder and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, has been charged with overseeing a multi-billion-dollar conspiracy to flood American communities with narcotics, including deadly fentanyl,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “We allege that El Mayo built, and for decades led, the Sinaloa Cartel’s network of manufacturers, assassins, traffickers, and money launderers responsible for kidnapping and murdering people in both the United States and Mexico, and importing lethal quantities of fentanyl, heroin, meth, and cocaine into the United States.”
In a letter last month , he said he was kidnapped in Mexico by a son of El Chapo who was also wanted by U.S. authorities for his role in the fentanyl trade, flown across the border into Texas against his will and handed over to U.S. authorities. He was transferred Thursday from the Western District of Texas to the Eastern District of New York, which includes Brooklyn, where he was first indicted in 2009.
A Beechcraft jet landed at Dona Ana County International Jetport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on Thursday, July 25, 2024, with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada on board. Omar Ornelas / USA Today Network
El Chapo was convicted in Brooklyn federal court in 2019 and was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.
“Zambada Garcia’s day of reckoning in a U.S. courtroom has arrived and justice will follow,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Friday. “If convicted, never again will he deliver fentanyl, cocaine, and other deadly drugs and associated violence into our country or make millions as hundreds of thousands of innocent lives are lost."
Although it was a family business that also employed their sons, El Mayo and El Chapo ran the Sinaloa Cartel from 1989 to 2024 as a “complex, layered” and sophisticated organization that controlled every step of the drug trade, “from source of supply to distribution on the streets of the United States,” the Justice Department said Friday .
Zambada also employed groups of "sicarios," or hitmen, on both sides of the border to murder "anyone who threatened this valuable narcotics pipeline" and to retaliate against rivals and suspected government snitches, the Justice Department said. “The billions of dollars generated from the drug sales were then transported and laundered back to Mexico.”
The Sinaloa Cartel under Zambada’s leadership began expanding its drug business into fentanyl manufacturing and distribution by 2012, making millions of dollars each year in corruption payments and conducting regular campaigns of brutal violence to ensure its success, the superseding indictment and other court filings allege.
If convicted, Zambada faces a mandatory minimum penalty of life in prison.
Joaquín Guzmán López, whom Zambada said kidnapped him, pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.
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