NEW YORK– NEW YORK (AP) — Ishmael “El Mayo” Zambada, A longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, who is facing drug trafficking charges in a U.S. court, made his first appearance Friday before the judge presiding over his case.
Zambada, 76, appeared at a status conference in Brooklyn federal court before District Judge Brian Cogan, who convicted fellow cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to life behind bars after being convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.
Prosecutors allege that Zambada and Guzmán built the Sinaloa Cartel into a massive manufacturer and smuggler of illegal narcotics, bringing vast quantities of drugs into the US. Zambada has pleaded not guilty.
He had long been wanted by the American police taken into custody in July after arriving at a Texas airport on a private plane with Guzmán’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, according to federal authorities. Guzman López is confronted has reported drug trafficking in Chicago and has also pleaded not guilty.
Since Zambada and Guzmán López were arrested in the US, their rival factions of the cartel have clashed in Sinaloa state. A dozen gunshots this week were fired in a building housing a local newspaper in the capital Culiacan. According to the newspaper, no one was injured.
Separately, US authorities on Thursday announced accusations against a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who they say runs a drug trafficking operation from Mexico and is protected by the Sinaloa Cartel.
During Friday’s status conference, prosecutors told the judge that some of the evidence in the case against Zambada is classified and that his attorneys need approval, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York.
The judge scheduled Zambada’s next appearance for January 15.
In the same courthouse earlier this week Cogan convicted Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public security minister, has been sentenced to more than 38 years in prison for taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the Sinaloa cartel.