US seeks to move alleged Mexican drug kingpin 'El Mayo' to Brooklyn for trial

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors are seeking to move alleged Mexican drug kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada from Texas to face trial in the same Brooklyn courthouse where his Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was convicted in 2019.

In a court filing on Thursday, federal prosecutors in El Paso, Texas said Zambada would be prosecuted on charges he faces in the Eastern District of New York before returning to face separate charges in Texas. They asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone to schedule a hearing to order him moved.

Zambada pleaded not guilty to the Texas charges. His lawyer, Frank Perez, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors said in their filing that they had not yet heard back from Zambada's defense counsel about their position on his removal.

The septuagenarian Zambada was taken into custody on July 25 at a New Mexico airfield alongside one of Guzman's sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. The dramatic operation was a major coup for U.S. law enforcement.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said Guzman Lopez surrendered voluntarily, but Zambada seemed to have been brought north of the border against his will.

Guzman Lopez has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges he faces in Chicago.

The charges Zambada faces in Brooklyn, which were brought in February, include conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, a synthetic opioid fueling an epidemic throughout the United States.

In Texas, Zambada faces drug trafficking and racketeering charges brought in 2012 stemming from alleged conspiracies to ship cocaine and marijuana to the United States.

Thursday's filing did not say when Zambada may be transferred to New York.

Guzman is serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)