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Zambada, who was arrested on July 25 in El Paso (Texas) and has been in prison in that state since then, was summoned before Judge James R. Cho, who will read him the 17 charges against him and which, if found guilty, carry a sentence of life imprisonment.
Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, will appear in person in a New York court on Friday to hear the charges against him, a spokesman for the New York Attorney General’s Office confirmed.
Zambada, who was arrested on July 25 in El Paso (Texas) and has been in prison in that state since then, was summoned before Judge James R. Cho, who will read him the 17 charges against him and which, if found guilty, carry a sentence of life imprisonment.
The charges have been amended or regrouped for the fifth time since his arrest and include crimes of murder, weapons possession, money laundering, drug production and trafficking (cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine) and belonging to a criminal enterprise.
One of the lawyers representing Zambada, Frank Pérez, told EFE that he was unaware of the summons for tomorrow because he had not been informed, although the lawyer who appears summoned to accompany ‘El Mayo’ will be Ray Velarde.
The New York Prosecutor’s Office defined Zambada as “one of the most prolific and powerful drug traffickers in the world” for having founded, together with Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán – sentenced in 2019 to life imprisonment, also in New York – the Sinaloa cartel in the 1980s.
Although Judge James Cho was appointed as the investigating judge, the hearing is expected to be presided over by Judge Brian Cogan, who tried El Chapo.
The arrest of ‘Mayo’ Zambada has not pacified his region of Sinaloa. This Thursday the authorities suspended classes in the municipalities of Culiacán, Cosalá, Elota and San Ignacio, while the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) reported on Wednesday a cumulative total of nine murders, eight wounded and 14 kidnapped or missing since Monday. EFE
