NEW YORK — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a robust chief of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, pleaded not responsible Friday in a U.S. drug trafficking case that accuses him of participating in homicide plots and ordering torture.
Taking part in a courtroom listening to by way of a Spanish-language interpreter, Zambada gave yes-or-no solutions to a Justice of the Peace’s normal questions on whether or not he understood numerous paperwork and procedures. Requested how he was feeling, Zambada mentioned, “High-quality, advantageous.”
His legal professionals entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Outdoors courtroom, Zambada lawyer Frank Perez mentioned his shopper wasn’t considering making a take care of the federal government, and the lawyer expects the case to go to trial.
“It’s a posh case,” he mentioned.
Sought by U.S. legislation enforcement for greater than 20 years, Zambada has been in U.S. custody since July 25, when he landed in a non-public aircraft at an airport exterior El Paso, Texas, within the firm of one other fugitive cartel chief, Joaquín Guzmán López, in response to federal authorities.
Zambada later mentioned in a letter that he was kidnapped in Mexico and delivered to the U.S. by Guzmán López, a son of imprisoned Sinaloa co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Zambada’s lawyer didn’t elaborate on these claims Friday.
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U.S. Justice of the Peace Decide James Cho ordered Zambada detained till trial. His legal professionals didn’t ask for bail, and U.S. prosecutors requested the choose to detain him.
“He was one of the crucial, if not probably the most, highly effective narcotics kingpins on the planet,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Francisco Navarro mentioned. “He co-founded the Sinaloa cartel and sat atop the narcotics trafficking world for many years.”
Zambada, 76, used a wheelchair at a courtroom look in Texas final month, and U.S. marshals steadied him Friday as he walked right into a federal courtroom in Brooklyn. He appeared to just accept some assist getting out of a chair after the transient listening to, then walked out slowly however unaided.
Perez mentioned after courtroom Friday that Zambada was wholesome and “in good spirits.”
Sketch artists had been within the small courtroom, however different journalists may observe solely by way of closed-circuit video due to a scarcity of seats.
In courtroom and in a letter earlier to the choose, prosecutors mentioned Zambada presided over an unlimited and violent operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a non-public safety pressure that was nearly like a military, and a corps of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture.
His bloody tenure included ordering the homicide, simply months in the past, of his personal nephew, prosecutors mentioned.
“A United States jail cell is the one factor that can stop the defendant from committing additional crimes,” Navarro mentioned.
Zambada additionally pleaded not responsible to the fees at an earlier courtroom look in Texas. His subsequent courtroom look is scheduled for Oct. 31.
Based on authorities, Zambada and “El Chapo” Guzmán constructed the Sinaloa cartel from a regional syndicate into an enormous producer and smuggler of cocaine, heroin and different illicit medication to U.S. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has described defeating the cartel as one of many company’s high operational priorities.
Zambada has been seen because the group’s strategist and dealmaker and a much less flamboyant determine than Guzmán. Zambada had by no means been behind bars till his July arrest.
His “day of reckoning in a U.S. courtroom has arrived, and justice will observe,” Brooklyn-based U.S. Lawyer Breon Peace declared in an announcement Friday.
Zambada’s arrest has touched off preventing in Mexico between rival factions within the Sinaloa cartel. Gunfights have killed a number of individuals. Colleges in companies in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, have closed amid the preventing. The battles are believed to be between factions loyal to Zambada and people led by different sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was convicted of drug and conspiracy prices and sentenced to life in jail within the U.S. in 2019.
It stays unclear why Guzmán López surrendered to U.S. authorities and introduced Zambada with him. Guzmán López is awaiting trial on a separate drug trafficking indictment in Chicago, the place he has pleaded not responsible.
Related Press video journalist David R. Martin contributed to this report.
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