This Friday, ‘El Mayo’ Zambada appears in court in New York

New York.- The drug trafficker Mexican Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, will appear in person this Friday in a New York court to listen to the arraignment that weigh about hima spokesman for the New York Attorney General’s Office confirmed.

Zambadawho was arrested on July 25 in El Paso (Texas) and had been imprisoned in that state since then, was summoned before Judge James R. Chowho will read the 17 charges against him and, if found guiltylead to a life sentence.

The charges against ‘Mayo’ Zambada

Charges have been amended or regrouped for the fifth time since his arrest and include crimes of murder, possession of weapons, money laundering, Drug production and trafficking (cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine) and belong to a criminal enterprise.

One of the lawyers representing Zambada, Frank Pérez, told EFE that he was unaware of the summons for tomorrow because he had not been informed, although the lawyer who appears summoned to accompany ‘El Mayo’ will be Ray Velarde.

The New York Prosecutor’s Office defined Zambada as “one of the most prolific and powerful drug traffickers in the world” having founded together with Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman -sentenced in 2019 to life imprisonment, also in New York- the Sinaloa cartel in the 1980s.

New judge for the case

Although Judge James Cho was appointed as the investigating judge, the hearing is expected to be presided over by Judge Brian Cogan, who tried El Chapo.

Cogan was also the judge who tried Genaro García Luna, the former Mexican Interior Secretary, in 2023, also in New York and found him guilty of several drug trafficking charges, although he is still awaiting a final sentence.

The arrest of ‘Mayo’ Zambada has not pacified his region of Sinaloa. This Thursday, authorities suspended classes in the municipalities of Culiacán, Cosalá, Elota and San Ignacio, while the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) reported on Wednesday a cumulative total of nine murders, eight injuries and 14 kidnapped or missing people since Monday.

The first news agency in Spanish and the fourth in the world, with nearly eighty years of experience, produces almost 3 million news items a year in different information formats: text, infographics, photography, audio, video and multimedia. It offers information instantly from its worldwide network of branches and correspondents in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Arabic, Catalan and Galician. It is a State-owned company, owned by the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI), attached to the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations of the Government of Spain.

See more