The leader of a powerful Mexican drug cartel who has been detained in Texas since being detained in the U.S. over the summer has not refused to be extradited to New York to face charges there, according to court filings Thursday.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada76, co-founder of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, ie arrested together with Joaquín Guzmán Lópezthe son of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán,” after landing at an airport near El Paso on July 25. He was charged in the US with various drug crimes and remains in prison.
Federal prosecutor in Texas asked the court last month to transfer Zambada to the New York jurisdiction that includes Brooklyn, where the elder Guzmán was convicted in 2019 of drug and conspiracy charges and sentenced to life in prison.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso has issued an order Wednesday denying the request to move to New York. But prosecutors filed a motion Thursday stating that Zambada and his attorney agreed to the move, and a subsequent court filing confirmed it.
The transfer is pending approval from Cardone, who late Thursday afternoon canceled a status conference hearing scheduled for Monday in El Paso.
Zambada faces charges in various locales. So far he has appeared in US federal court in El Paso, where he has pleaded not guilty to various drug-trafficking charges.
If prosecutors get their way, the case against Zambada in Texas will continue after the one in New York.
In New York, Zambada was charged with continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit murder, drug offenses and other crimes.
A strange twist in the cartel leader’s saga
In the an unexpected twistLast month, Mexican prosecutors said they would bring charges against Guzmán for the apparent kidnap Zambada. The younger Guzmán apparently intends to turn himself in to US authorities, but may bring Zambada as a prize to broker any deal.
Federal prosecutors released a statement saying an “arrest warrant has been prepared” against Guzmán for the kidnapping.
/ AP
But it also mentions other charges under an article in Mexico’s criminal code that defines what he did as treason. That part of the law says treason is committed “by those who illegally kidnap people in Mexico in order to hand them over to the authorities of another country.”
The clause was apparently prompted by the kidnapping of a Mexican doctor wanted for his alleged involvement in the torture and killing of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Kiki Camarena in 1985.
Not included in the statement is that the younger Guzmán is a member of the Chapitos – “little Chapos” – faction of the Sinaloa cartel, made up of Chapo’s son, who smuggle millions of doses of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the United States, causing about 70,000 overdose deaths each year . According to a 2023 indictment by the US Department of Justice, Chapitos and his cartel associates used corkscrews, electricity and hot chiles to torture his rival while some victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers.”
The authorities said at the end of the month killing at least 10 people in Sinaloa appears to be linked to infighting within the dominant drug-trafficking cartel there, which confirms fears that there may be consequences to the arrests 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 his conviction. sentenced in 2019 the charges include drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.
last year, El Chapo sends an “SOS” message. to the president of Mexico, stating that he had been subjected to “psychological torture” in prison.
