Mexican cartel leader “El Mayo” Zambada pleads not guilty to US charges

NEW YORK (AP) — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, one of the most influential leaders of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, pleaded not guilty on Friday in a US drug trafficking case. In the case, he is accused of involvement in murder plots and ordering torture.

During a court hearing accompanied by a Spanish-speaking interpreter, Zambada answered a judge's standard questions about whether he understood various documents and procedures with a yes or no. When asked how he was feeling, Zambada said, “Good, good.”

His lawyers entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Outside court, Zambada's attorney Frank Perez said his client does not plan to make a deal with the government and the attorney expects the case to go to trial.

“It’s a complex case,” he said.

Zambada, wanted by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades is in US custody since July 25, when he landed in a private plane at an airport outside El Paso, Texas, accompanied by another fugitive cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán López, according to federal authorities.

Zambada said later in a letter that he was kidnapped in Mexico and brought to the United States by Guzmán López, a son of imprisoned Sinaloa co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Zambada's lawyer did not elaborate on these allegations on Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho ordered Zambada to be detained pending trial. His lawyers did not request bail, and U.S. prosecutors asked the judge to remand him in custody.

“He was one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, drug lord in the world,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro. “He was a co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel and was at the top of the drug trade for decades.”

Zambada, 76, uses a wheelchair at a court hearing in Texas last month, and U.S. marshals supported him Friday as he entered a federal courtroom in Brooklyn. After the brief hearing, he appeared to accept some help getting out of his chair and then slowly but unassisted left the courtroom.

Perez said after the hearing on Friday that Zambada was healthy and “in good spirits.”

There were sketch artists in the small courtroom, but other journalists could only follow the trial via video surveillance systems due to a lack of seats.

In court and in a letter to the judge, prosecutors said Zambada had led a massive and violent operation, with an arsenal of military weapons, a private security force that was almost like an army, and a squad of “sicarios,” or hired assassins, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture.

During his bloody term in office, he ordered, among other things, the murder of his own nephew a few months ago, the public prosecutor's office said.

“A prison cell in the United States is the only thing that can stop the defendant from committing further crimes,” Navarro said.

Zambada also pleaded not guilty at an earlier court appearance in Texas. His next court appearance is scheduled for October 31.

According to authorities, Zambada and “El Chapo” Guzmán expanded the Sinaloa cartel from a regional syndicate into a huge manufacturer and smuggler of cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs into the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has described dismantling the cartel as one of the agency's top operational priorities.

Zambada was considered the group's strategist and dealmaker and a less conspicuous figure than Guzmán. Zambada had never been behind bars until his arrest in July.

“His day of reckoning in a U.S. court has come, and justice will follow,” Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement Friday.

Zambada's arrest has sparked fighting in Mexico between rival factions of the Sinaloa cartel, with several people killed in shootings. Schools and businesses in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, have joined forces amidst the fighting. The fighting is believed to be between factions loyal to Zambada and those led by other sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was convicted of drug offenses and conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA in 2019.

It remains unclear why Guzmán López turned himself in to the US authorities and took Zambada with him. Guzmán López is waiting for the trial on a separate charge of drug trafficking in Chicago, where he pleaded not guilty.

___

Associated Press video journalist David R. Martin contributed to this report.