Mexican poison lord Ismael “El Mayo” ZambadaThe co-founder of Sinaloa Cartel pleaded guilty to federal blackmail charges and ran a criminal business on Monday, and has been arrested in Texas for more than a year since he was described as a kidnapping.
“I recognize the great harm to the American people and Mexico“I apologize for all of this and I am responsible for my actions,” the 77-year-old Zambada said in court through a Spanish interpreter.
Zambada helped form the terrifying Sinaloa Cartel in the late 1980s.
Trafficking squad with Joaquín Guzmán López in July 2024 Joaquín “El Chapo” GuzmánHe is regarded by the U.S. authorities as the “principal leader of the Sinaloa Cartel” and is currently sentenced to life imprisonment in U.S. prisons.
The United States claims that Sambada presided over a violent, highly militarized cartel, with private security forces equipped with powerful weapons and a “Sicarios”, or assassination, kidnapping and torture killers.
Prosecutors said the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Guzmán and Zambada, developed into the world’s largest drug trafficking organization, controlling the transfer of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, moving from Mexico’s mountains, and later producing fentanyl from previous chemicals in China.
Zambada was a former former Juárez Cartel, and had run in a region called the “Golden Triangle” in Mexico, surrounded by Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua. His career began as a farmer, freelancer and small drug trafficker, moving a small amount of marijuana and heroin. As a logistics expert, he helped expand Sinaloa Cartel’s business.
Like Guzman, the drug deal became a family business: Zambada’s wife, four sons and four daughters were involved in drug trafficking at one time. In 2019, a son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, testified: “His father’s bribery budget usually reaches $1 million a month, and bribery involves many senior Mexican public officials.”
Zambada’s plea deal comes two weeks after New York’s federal prosecutors said they would not seek death penalty. Zambada’s lawyer Frank Pereztell NBC News The decision “signs an important step in achieving a fair and just solution”.
After Zambada was arrested, U.S. officials claim He was once willing to go to the United States, but was deceived by Guzman’s son, and he also handed himself over to the U.S. authorities for more favorable treatment.
Zambada wrote shortly after her arrest that “there are a lot of inaccurate reports” and hoped that everyone knew from the outset that he had not surrendered to the U.S. authorities, reached an agreement or reached a voluntary agreement.
He wrote: “Instead, I was kidnapped and against my will.”
Zambada petitioned the Mexican government to request extradition to the country. Mexico said it is investigating anyone involved in handing over Mexican citizens to foreign agents as a crime of rebellion.
The drug lord’s plea deal comes as Donald Trump’s administration is putting pressure on Mexico to fight the Cartels, with plans reportedly starting to use military power on groups including Sinaloa, which the U.S. government believes is a terrorist organization.
In early August, The New York Times Report Trump has issued a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force to curb the flow of narcotics in the United States, a task usually assigned to law enforcement agencies.
Zambada’s plea deal comes after his former Sinaloa partner Guzmán recently filed a federal complaint that he faced cruel and unusual conditions of lockdown in Super Max federal prison in Florence, Colorado, where he was held.
Guzmán’s human rights lawyer said their client “had not had enough medical care for years in modern times with severe sinus, ears, nose and throat pain” and “experienced “severe sleep deprivation over the years” due to the detention conditions in his cell.
The filing claim Guzmán remains in “all-inclusive quarantine”, which amounts to unconstitutional and unusual punishment. Guzmán, which is retained in the document, will suffer “irreparable harm”.
David Lane, the lawyer at El Chapo Tell Denver 7 Guzmán accused “he was completely isolated and had almost no human contact of any kind”.
“He only speaks Spanish, and even the Spanish-speaking defender was instructed not to interact with him or talk to him,” Ryan said. “So, this is completely isolated from any human contact.
“This is the control of the government… The most dangerous entity on earth is an unrestricted government that can do whatever it wants. We are here to defend [Guzmán] Oppose the government and protect all our fundamental rights. ”
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