Mexican cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was one of the United States’s most wanted drug lords, pleaded not guilty to murder and drug trafficking charges in federal court in New York on Friday.
Zambada, co-founder and leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, will stay in prison until his trial after he was arrested in July in New Mexico, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said.
Prosecutors wrote in a letter asking a judge for Zambada’s continued detention that he was “one of the world’s most notorious and dangerous drug traffickers,” noting that the 76-year-old drug lord had been indicted more than a dozen times in the U.S. in the last two decades.
In the most recent instance, Zambada was indicted in New York in February on 17 charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, running a criminal enterprise, and several charges related to distributing and manufacturing cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana.
Under Zambada's leadership, the Sinaloa cartel has become a multibillion-dollar drug trafficking operation that transports the “vast majority” of its illegal drugs into the U.S., prosecutors said in the indictment.
As the country grapples with a deadly opioid crisis driven in part by the prevalence of illicit fentanyl, Zambada's cartel has allegedly transported thousands of kilograms of the dangerous product into the U.S. during the last decade. Two milligrams of fentanyl is lethal, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Sinaloa cartel, under Zambada's leadership, has also shipped “multi-ton quantities” of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana into the U.S., prosecutors said.
Zambada has "inflicted immeasurable harm on families and communities across our country," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement at the time of Zambada's arrest.
Drug overdose hospitalizations and deaths are not the only results of Zambada's work, prosecutors said. As Sinaloa cartel ringleader, Zambada allegedly hired hitmen to carry out many acts of violence, including murders, kidnappings, assaults, and torture. These acts were driven, prosecutors said, by the cartel's need to establish dominance among rival organizations, discipline members, and silence witnesses.
Zambada's arrest was momentous for U.S. law enforcement and appeared to have been the result of a smooth ploy by federal investigators. Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of drug boss "El Chapo," reportedly cooperated with authorities in the U.S. to lure Zambada onto a plane under the guise that he would be inspecting land in Mexico, a source told CNN.
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However, conflicting versions of the story have emerged. Zambada's lawyer said, according to El Pais, that his client was actually asked by Lopez to attend a meeting with the governor of Sinaloa but was instead led into a room where he was kidnapped, handcuffed, had a bag put over his head, and forced onto an airplane that was flown into Texas. The claim prompted the Sinaloa governor to say Zambada's lawyer was lying. The U.S. government has provided few details about the arrest.
Zambada faces a mandatory life sentence if he is convicted. His next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 31.
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