NEW: The Mexican drug lord Mayo Zambada will soon be moved from El Paso to face prosecution in Brooklyn in the same courthouse where his former partner in crime, El Chapo, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, according to 4 people familiar with the matter.
Story TK.— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer)
August 6, 2024
In his first hearings before U.S. authorities, Zambada pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
In the New York Court, not only was the case against Guzmán Loera, who faces life imprisonment, brought and concluded, but Genaro García Luna, who was Secretary of Security during the Felipe Calderón Hinojosa administration, was also found guilty of conspiring on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel.
(Special image)
García Luna will also be sentenced in the New York Court, and could also receive life imprisonment.
The septuagenarian Zambada was taken into U.S. custody on July 25 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 38, the son of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
The circumstances leading to the arrest of Zambada and Guzman Lopez at Doña Ana County International Airport near El Paso remain unclear.
Mexican authorities said this week that the arrest occurred after Guzmán López and his brother Ovidio Guzmán López reached an agreement with U.S. agents.
U.S. officials briefed on the operation said last week that Guzman Lopez tricked Zambada into getting on a plane by telling him they were going to look at real estate in northern Mexico, then fly north of the border, where Guzman Lopez planned to turn himself in but Zambada did not.
Zambada’s lawyer, Frank Perez, disputed that version of events, saying Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms “forcibly kidnapped” his client near Culiacan, in the state of Sinaloa, and then took him to the United States against his will.
In the Texas case, which was filed in 2012, Zambada was charged with racketeering conspiracy and murder in furtherance of drug trafficking.
Prosecutors said cartel members under the leadership of Zambada and “El Chapo” kidnapped a Texas resident in 2009 to pay for the loss of a seized marijuana shipment, and kidnapped a U.S. citizen and two of his family members in 2010. Both victims were killed, prosecutors said.
-With information from the Reuters agency.
