Lawyer ‘Mayo’ Zambada “did not come to the United States voluntarily.”

By Alejandra Arredondo |

San Antonio (USA), (EFE).- Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, co-founder of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, detained in El Paso (Texas) on drug trafficking charges, arrived in the United States against his will. One of his lawyers assured EFE this Friday.

“He did not come to the U.S. voluntarily; that’s simply not true,” said Frank Perez, who defends Mexicans in Texas, where Zambada appeared for a preliminary hearing Friday morning.

El Mayo, 76, who had been a fugitive from justice for decades, was captured by US authorities when he disembarked from a small plane at a regional airport on the outskirts of the border city of El Paso.

Traveling with him was Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, his former partner in the Sinaloa cartel, who is now serving a life sentence in New York.

Capture

Guzmán López, alias Guero Moreno, was also captured on Thursday night and a trial has already been scheduled for next week in Chicago (Illinois) – more than 2,400 kilometers from El Paso.

The circumstances surrounding the arrest of one of the most powerful figures in Mexican drug trafficking, who had managed to evade authorities for decades, are unknown.

According to leaks in some US media, Guzmán López fraudulently brought ‘El Mayo’ to the US to benefit his brother Ovidio Guzmán, who was extradited in September last year.

And, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Ovidio was released from prison last Tuesday, although the United States Embassy in Mexico assured that he would remain “in custody.”

The newspaper The New York Times also said that Zambada himself had been negotiating with US authorities for his surrender for three years without reaching an agreement, a fact confirmed by five different sources.

the audience

The preliminary hearing in El Paso on Friday morning was the first time Mayo, one of the DEA’s most wanted men, came face to face with a justice.

According to a transcript obtained by EFE, Zambada, seated in a wheelchair, listened to Judge Anne T. Burton explain the next steps in his case and the charges he is accused of, which include drug trafficking and money laundering.

Following the hearing this morning, Mayo’s defence tabled a document declaring he will plead not guilty to the more than 30 offences he is accused of and that the official reading of the charges will take place on Wednesday the 31st.

In Washington, from the White House, President Joe Biden has already claimed the capture of Zambada as an achievement of his government against one of “the world’s deadliest organizations.”

And for their part, from Mexico they assured that they neither knew about the operation nor had they collaborated in the capture.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador publicly requested information from his US counterparts during a morning press conference.

“The United States government must give a full report, it is not just a general statement, there must be information, there must be transparency,” the president declared in his morning briefing.

The Secretary of Security, Rosa Aisella Rodríguez, revealed that her government “did not participate” in the operation and that the United States Embassy was informed on Thursday when the arrests of the two leaders had already been made.