08/13/2024 2:42 PM
By Kimberly James; WBAP and KLIF News, Dallas, Texas.
DALLAS, TX (WBAP/KLIF) -Jailed Sinloa cartel kingpin “El Mayo”, or Ismael Mario Zambada García, is expected to be moved from El Paso, Texas, to New York City to face trial on several federal charges. El Mayo and Joaqin Guzman Lopez, a Sinaloa cartel son of “El Chapo” (Joaquin Guzman Loera), were arrested near El Paso on July 25th, 2024, upon landing in a small plane in a New Mexico location. It’s believed one or both suspects had long been in negotiations with federal American officials for a possible surrender, with some sources say talks were underway for at least two years. Federal officials have indicated the impending arrival from the Chihuahua or Sinaloa area took them by surprise, with word of the plane’s occupants and intended American destination en route reportedly coming during the flight, and without a flight plan.
Dallas based attorney Frank Perez currently represents the 76-year-old Zambada, wanted for years on drug trafficking and related charges; a suspect who’d never set foot in a jail. Zambada had become a mythical character to many, seldom seen, managing to elude capture for decades operating from the shadows as compared to the flashier lifestyle exhibited by El Chapo’s sons, known as “the Chapitos”, who are reported to have taken over their father’s faction of the Sinaloa cartel once their father was captured and extradited to the United States. Perez is reported to have said he expects Zambada will be transferred to the Eastern District of New York, the same venue in which “El Chapo” was tried and sentenced to a life sentence in a maximum security prison at the “Supermax” prison in Colorado. El Chapo’s sentence was levied following his 2019 conviction on a bevy of charges, including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.
Zambada faces charges including continuance of criminal enterprise-murder, two counts of a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to possess narcotics, attempt/conspiracy-narcotics-importation/exportation, laundering of monetary instruments and conspiracy to possess firearm/drug traffickers, and aid and abet. The elderly Mexican citizen also has charges pending in Brooklyn, Illinois, California, and Washington, D.C. In El Paso, Texas, Zambada pleaded not guilty to all charges.
38-year old Joaquin Guzman Lopez was reported flown from El Paso to Chicago the day after the Texas arrest. He is one of four sons of “El Chapo”, who are said to have taken over their father’s faction of the cartel following “Chapo’s” extradition to the United States. In a press briefing, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated “What they (the Americans) told us was about Guzman Lopez, that they had talks with him and that suddenly not only Guzman Lopez arrived but Mr. Zambada arrived”.
The attorney for Zambada, Frank Perez, states his client was kidnapped by Guzman Lopez. Perez asserts prior to the arrest in the U.S., Zambada arrived to a residence in a Culiacan, Sinaloa neighborhood for talks with some members of the alternate, Guzman arm of the cartel, where he was tied up, hooded, driven to an airstrip several miles away, forced onto a small plane with Joaquin, and bound with zip ties to the seat of the plane bound for the United States. In other words, Perez asserts his client Zambada was tricked into a meeting, kidnapped, and forced to fly in that plane to “surrender” when he had no intention of doing so.
Officials debated motivation for a possible kidnapping, with assertions by some in the online communities Guzman Lopez was surrendering with a larger “prize” for American authorities, to be used as a bargaining chip, and/or helpful to a sentence or both sentences currently being served by both his father and his brother, 34-year old Ovidio Guzman Lopez, and perhaps himself. Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested at the age of 33, in a second widely publicized Culiacan, Mexico battle with Mexican law enforcement on January 5, 2023, and extradited to the U.S. September 15, 2023. He was convicted on ten counts related to drug trafficking and firearms, and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, and ordered to pay $12.6 billion dollars in forfeiture.
Perhaps also at issue was the $15 million dollar reward the U.S. had posted for information leading to the arrest of El Mayo; it may be Joaquin is or believed he would be in line for this reward money, in delivering El Mayo to the U.S.
Controversy and some element of mystery continues in this vein, as some American officials had also stated Zambada had agreed to surrender himself to American officials in lengthy discussions. Some within online communities have asserted the apparent American effort to dismantle the Sinaloa cartel, the focus because of the cartel’s reported peddling of the drug fentanyl, caused Zambada to “see the writing on the wall”, leading to a more willing surrender, and likely “deal” – the goal of a lesser prison sentence with quick release to participation in the federal Witness Protection Program, should he offer American officials enough information.
But Zambada is reported to be suffering from cancer and/or a serious illness, and other assertions maintain a surrender was reportedly discussed with another or additional goal of again seeing his son Vicente Zambada Niebla, believed in the federal Witness Protection Program. Zambada Niebla was released from incarceration in 2021, after testifying against El Chapo in a plea deal. Vicente is reported to be living in the the northeast United States. His original sentence of 15 years is believed to have been reduced through cooperation in his testimony against El Chapo, and other members of the Sinaloa cartel.
Following the arrest of Vicente, El Mayo is reported to have set sights on training two of his other sons for possible future leadership of the cartel, “Mayito Gordo” and “Mayito Flaco”, of an estimated age of 37. “Mayito Gordo”, Ismael Zambada Imperial, was arrested in Sinaloa state in 2014, extradited in 2019, and sentenced in California in 2021 to nine years after pleading guilty to several drug trafficking charges. In July of 2022, Zambada Imperial was released and deported to Mexico, with the release apparently taking into account years he’d served in Mexico.
“Mayito Flaco”, Ismael Zambada Sicairos, estimated to be 42 years old, is on the DEA’s list of most wanted fugitives; and now believed to be the possible heir of his father’s business. A 15-million dollar reward for information leading to his arrest has been advertised by the United States. Authorities believe he heads the cartel’s movement of methamphetimine-related chemicals from Asia to Mexico, with the United States among market destinations of the final product. With a reported willingness to be more confrontational with rivals than was his father, officials are concerned about a possible escalation of violence in Mexico, with a possible jockeying for power left by the void of his father’s command.
Another son of Zambada faced legal troubles after arrest upon crossing the Mexico-U.S. border at Nogales, Arizona. The case against now 34-year old Serafín Zambada Ortiz was reportedly kept quiet, allowing for what may have been an unexpected arrest. Officials say he attempted to cross the border at Nogales, Arizona, with his wife to shop for Christmas in November of 2013. His wife was released, but Zambada Ortiz was sent to prison in Tucson, Arizona. While later registered as an inmate in San Diego at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, it was leaked to news agencies in February of 2015 he was no longer there. Sources at that prison reported his transfer, though Zambada Ortiz was not registered at that reported transfer location. It is possible Zambada Ortiz was moved from the MCC into the Federal Witness Protection Program, or, a residence kept under survelliance.
How 76-year old “El Mayo” got to the United States gets murkier with announcement by a man in Mexico who’s asserted he’s long been a family attorney for the Guzman family. Following the arrest of “El Mayo”, Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza stated to Mexican media El Mayo voluntarily surrendered. In a statement, he sought to tamp down rumors of alleged betrayal in the purported kidnapping of the kingpin, assuring familial relationships between Sinaloa families remain impeccable.
For his part, El Mayo has entered a plea of not guilty, and is held without bond. The arrests are the latest in a series of big captures that appear to be targeting Sinaloa cartel leadership. U.S. officials state the Sinaloa cartel is responsible for trafficking enormous amounts of cocaine, methamphetimine, heroin and now fentanyl into the United States. The Sinaloa cartel is a multi-national, worldwide business, believed to have recently involved Chinese money launderers, using cryptocurrency to move money.
Zambada waived some hearings in El Paso, Texas, but did appear in person in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone. She set his next court hearing in El Paso for September 9th.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has stated Zambada oversaw the trafficking of “tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence,” The DEA; Drug Enforcement Agency calls fentanyl the most urgent drug threat in America, and blames it with other synthetic opiods for some 70% of the 100,000-plus overdoses in the U.S. in 2022 alone.
With other criminal enterprises, the Sinaloa cartel is also blamed for a good portion of the growing migrant smuggling operations increasingly operated by criminal enterprises. Record numbers of migrants have purchased social media-advertised trips placing them in group-by-group operations that change with territory as they are moved north toward the American border. Increasing reports of migrant abuse, extortion, torture and homicides are being heard as the operation appears to grow exponentially.
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