NEW YORK—Former Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded not guilty to 17 felony counts, including drug distribution and engaging in a criminal enterprise, in a superseding indictment during a short hearing in New York on Sept. 13.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho of the Eastern District of New York ordered Zambada, who led the infamous Sinaloa cartel, to jail pending trial. Zambada previously worked with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman—the subject of a Netflix series. Guzman was sentenced in the same courthouse five years ago and is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.
In the Sept. 13 hearing, prosecutor Francisco Navarro called Zambada “one of the most, if not the most, powerful narcotics kingpins in the world.” The 76-year-old Zambada, who is facing a life sentence, limped when police led him out of the courtroom. He is next due in court on Oct. 31.
During the hearing, he answered questions in Spanish and gave mostly yes or no answers. The judge drew assurances that Zambada’s pleas were made voluntarily and intelligently, as well as without pressure or threats.
“A United States jail cell is the only thing that will prevent the defendant from committing further crimes and ensure his return to court,” Navarro told the hearing.
The court docket for the case stretches back to a sealed indictment in 2009, followed by superseding indictments, including one from February 2024.
“The defendant has been indicted no fewer than 16 times over the past two decades in districts across the United States,” Navarro said in a letter to the court on Sept. 12.
Navarro’s letter urged permanent detention pending trial and described Zambada as a flight risk.
“The defendant’s release would pose extraordinary danger to the community given the ease with which he can continue to engage in criminal conduct by, among other things, directing Cartel members to engage in narcotics trafficking and/or violence on his behalf,” he said.
“No condition or combination of conditions of release can assure the safety of the public or the defendant’s appearance at trial.”
Violence
Zambada’s cartel has used brutal force and intimidation to maintain control, the letter said, with the defendant directing violence as recently as last year.“In approximately November 2023, the defendant directed violence in retaliation for the theft of a large cache of fentanyl pills, methamphetamine, and cocaine that belonged to the Cartel in Tijuana,” the letter read.
“To the government’s knowledge, at least three people have been murdered in retaliatory violence directed by the defendant in connection with that theft.”
The letter portrayed Zambada’s cartel as filling a vacuum left by Colombian traffickers who started abandoning their distribution in the United States while seeing increasing law enforcement activity in the 2000s.
It added that the cartel “has distributed many thousands of kilograms of fentanyl into and throughout the United States.” Cartel production of fentanyl, it said, involved the purchase of fentanyl precursor chemicals from Chinese companies and the production of fentanyl in high volume in laboratories both in rural areas and major cities in Mexico for distribution in the United States.
Shootouts this week in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa kindled fears that an intra-cartel war was about to break out in the wake of Zambada’s arrest.
Fighting has killed 12 people since Sept. 9, and on Sept. 12, state authorities canceled National Day celebrations and shut schools in response to the escalating violence.
