Ismael Zambada García is about to arrive in New York. El Mayo is scheduled to be presented this Friday at 10:00 a.m. before the Eastern District Court of New York, the same one where Joaquín Zambada García was tried and convicted. El Chapo Guzmán and the Secretary of Security, Genaro García Luna, informed the American authorities. The Prosecutor’s Office assured that the 76-year-old Mexican drug trafficker is “a danger to the community” and represents “a high risk of flight,” reason why it has requested that extreme measures be taken and that the accused be kept in preventive detention until the trial formally begins.
Zambada had been detained in the border city of El Paso, Texas, since his unexpected capture on July 25. The Western District Court of Texas authorized the transfer of the drug lord last week, but since then the United States has handled his transfer secretly. The hearing scheduled for Friday is the first evidence that El Mayo will continue his judicial process in Brooklyn, New York, where he faces charges of fentanyl trafficking, organized crime, possession of firearms and money laundering.
The New York case dates back to 2009, but was only updated in February of this year to include fentanyl trafficking charges and covers a period from the late 1980s to this year. Filed in 2012, the Texas case, on the other hand, focuses on crimes committed more than a decade ago, when El Mayo and El Chapo, as leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, embarked on a war against the Juarez Cartel to fight for the drug trafficking route between Chihuahua and Texas, one of the most important and lucrative.
If brought to trial, the evidence and testimony presented by U.S. authorities would paint a much more recent picture of the Sinaloa Cartel: its operations in nearly 50 countries, its rivalry with other criminal groups, its business model and the alliances it has established with politicians and law enforcement officials. “The defendant has dedicated his efforts for decades to expanding, increasing and deepening the power of the cartel, as well as his power and position within the organization after his partner El Chapo was captured,” reads the detention memo filed by prosecutors about Zambada, founder and drug lord of drug lords of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The document makes it clear that the trials against Guzmán and García Luna, Mexico’s former anti-drug czar during the government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), will serve as precedents for what can be expected in terms of the revelations that the authorities make about El Mayo’s criminal empire and how indigestible they can be on the other side of the border. “Numerous witnesses have testified, including during the trials against El Chapo and the corrupt former Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, that corruption at all levels was necessary for the accused’s criminal enterprise to function so effectively and on such a large scale,” the Prosecutor’s Office states. “From local police who escorted drugs through Mexico to corrupt officials who reported military actions against the cartel, thwarted capture operations and warned the cartel of proceedings and investigations against it,” it adds.
Authorities stressed that the criminal organization paid millions of dollars in bribes and “corrupt payments” under Zambada’s direction. They also made a lengthy argument to present El Mayo as one of the most violent and powerful criminals in the world. They detailed that he had a team of hitmen, “military-grade arsenal to protect himself, his drugs and his empire,” and that he is behind numerous kidnappings and murders ordered by him. “He is accused of conspiring to kill members of the cartel, law enforcement and rival cartels as part of his ongoing criminal enterprise in this court’s indictment,” they said.
Prosecutors have also said they will seek an exemplary sentence against El Mayo. “The defendant faces the death penalty or life imprisonment on the charge of having a continuing criminal enterprise.” [delincuencia organizada]as well as a 30-year sentence for the firearms possession charges and multiple sentences of a minimum of 10 years for the other drug trafficking charges,” they say. In addition to fentanyl, a charge filed just last February, Zambada faces 14 offenses for trafficking cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamines.
El Mayo appeared in a wheelchair and pleaded not guilty to all charges in Texas. In an unexpected turn of events and after successfully defeating a first attempt to transfer him, the drug lord’s defense agreed to have their client tried in another state. Brian Cogan, the same judge who conducted the trials against El Chapo and García Luna, will be in charge of determining the measures to give way to the trial against Zambada and also in charge of the judicial proceedings. The hearing on Friday, however, will be held before Magistrate James R. Cho, the equivalent of an investigating judge. While the transfer was announced in the United States, in Mexico the men loyal to El Mayo and Los Chapitos, led by El Chapo’s sons, have been engaged in a feud that has left at least nine dead, 14 missing and 16 vehicles stolen in Sinaloa since last Monday.
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