US prosecutors aim to try Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ Zambada in New York, then in Texas

NEW YORK (AP) — A Mexican drug lord who was arrested in the U.S. could be headed to trial in New York City, after prosecutors filed a request Thursday to move him from Texas.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, known as a top leader and co-founder of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, faces charges in multiple U.S. locales. He and a son of notorious Sinaloa kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán were arrested last month after being flown into New Mexico. Zambada has said he was kidnapped in his home country en route to what he thought was a meeting with a Mexican official.

Zambada, 76, has so far appeared in U.S. federal court in El Paso, Texas, which is in one of the jurisdictions where he has been indicted. He has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, drug conspiracy and other charges.

Federal prosecutors in Texas asked a court Thursday to hold a hearing to take the procedural steps needed to move him to the New York jurisdiction that includes Brooklyn, where the elder Guzmán was convicted in 2019 of drug and conspiracy charges and sentenced to life in prison.

If prosecutors get their wish, the case against Zambada in Texas would proceed after the one in New York.

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A message seeking comment was sent to Zambada’s attorneys.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn declined to comment. Zambada is charged there with running a continuing criminal enterprise, murder conspiracy, drug offenses and other crimes.

Meanwhile, Joaquín Guzmán López, the “El Chapo” son arrested with Zambada, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in a federal court in Chicago.

Zambada ran the Sinaloa cartel with the elder Guzmán as it grew from a regional presence into a huge manufacturer and smuggler of illicit fentanyl pills and other drugs to the United States, authorities say.

Considered a good negotiator, Zambada has been seen as the syndicate’s strategist and dealmaker, thought to be more involved in its day-to-day doings than the more flamboyant Guzmán.

Keeping a lower profile, Zambada had never been behind bars until his U.S. arrest last month.

He has often been at odds with Guzmán’s sons, dubbed the Chapitos, or Little Chapos. Fearful that Zambada’s arrest could trigger a violent power struggle within the cartel, the Mexican government quickly dispatched 200 special forces soldiers to the state of Sinaloa, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador publicly pleaded with the cartel factions not to fight each other.