Notorious Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada faces trial in New York

A Mexican drug lord arrested in the United States last month will stand trial in Brooklyn after a judge granted prosecutors' request to move the case from Texas to the Big Apple.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 76, co-founder of Mexico’s brutal Sinaloa drug cartel, was taken into custody on July 25 along with Joaquin Guzmán López, son of notorious imprisoned leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

According to officials, the two were lured onto a plane because it was believed they were going to look at properties in Mexico.

Instead, the plane landed in El Paso, Texas, where agents from the Department of Homeland Security were waiting to arrest the men. They are accused of drug trafficking in connection with the distribution of the deadly drugs fentanyl and methamphetamine, the Justice Department said.

“The old man was set up,” a law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times.

But Zambada denies the allegations that he was set up. He insists that he was ambushed at a meeting in Culiacán, Mexico, and put on the three-hour flight to the United States.

“On the contrary, I was kidnapped and brought to the United States by force and against my will,” Zambada wrote in a letter from prison released by his lawyer and obtained by CBS News.

Zambada is facing charges in several U.S. jurisdictions, including in federal court in Brooklyn, where El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 after being found guilty of numerous drug and conspiracy offenses.

The charges against the Brooklyn drug lord include leading a continuing criminal organization, conspiracy to commit murder, drug offenses and other crimes.

The judge ordered that Zambada's first court appearance be scheduled “without further delay,” but a date was not immediately announced.

A spokesman for the Eastern District of New York said he had no comment on the filing.