Sinaloa Cartel Leader Mayo Zambada Pleads Not Guilty to 17 Charges in NY

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the powerful leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, pleaded not guilty Friday in New York to 17 counts of drug trafficking and murder.

Participating in a court hearing through a Spanish interpreter, Zambada did not speak except to give brief answers to a judge’s standard questions about whether he understood various documents and procedures and how he was feeling — “fine, fine,” he said. His lawyers pleaded not guilty on his behalf.

Wanted by US authorities for more than two decades, Zambada has been under arrest in the United States since July 25when he landed in a private plane at an airport outside El Paso, Texas, in the company of another fugitive drug lord, Joaquín Guzmán López, according to federal authorities.

Zambada later said in a letter that he was kidnapped in Mexico and taken to the United States by Guzmán López, the son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is now in prison.

Assistant U.S. District Judge James Cho ordered Zambada held until his trial. His attorneys did not request bail, and the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office asked the judge to keep him in custody.

“He was one of the most powerful drug lords in the world, if not the most powerful,” said Deputy U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro. “He was the co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel and ruled the world of drug trafficking for decades.”

Zambada sat silently as he listened to the interpreter. As he left the courtroom, he appeared to accept some help getting out of his chair and then walked out slowly but unassisted.

There were court sketch artists in the small courtroom, but all other journalists could only watch via a closed-circuit system because there were few seats.

In court and in a letter sent earlier to the judge, prosecutors said Zambada ran a vast and violent operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a private security force that was almost like an army, and a corps of hitmen who killed, kidnapped and tortured.

During his bloody reign, he gave the order to assassinate his own nephew just a few months ago, the prosecution said.

“A cell in the United States is the only thing that will prevent the accused from committing more crimes,” Navarro said.

Zambada has also pleaded not guilty to the charges in previous appearances in Texas courts.

His surprise arrest sparked fighting in Mexico between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel. Several people have been killed in shootouts. Schools and businesses in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, have closed amid the clashes. The battles are thought to be between factions loyal to Zambada and those led by other cartel members. Children of “El Chapo” Guzmanconvicted on drug trafficking and conspiracy charges, and sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019.

It remains unclear why Guzman Lopez turned himself in to U.S. authorities and took Zambada with him. Guzman Lopez is awaiting trial in Chicago on a separate drug trafficking charge, to which he has pleaded not guilty to the drug trafficking and other charges in federal court.

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