Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael Zambada Garcia is to appear in court on Thursday amid ongoing mystery about the circumstances surrounding the arrest of the alleged Mexican drug trafficking kingpin.
Zambada, 76, was taken into US custody a week ago after landing in a private plane at an airstrip outside El Paso, Texas, with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of the other Sinaloa co-founder, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Following his arrest, Zambada, also known as “El Mayo,” entered a plea of not guilty to US charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.
A status hearing in the case is to be held in a federal court in El Paso on Thursday.
The 38-year-old Guzman Lopez, who faces drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons charges, pleaded not guilty in a district court in Chicago on Tuesday and was remanded in custody.
He is one of the four sons of “El Chapo” known collectively as “Los Chapitos,” or “The Little Chapos.”
“El Chapo” was convicted of drug charges in New York in 2019 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.
The details of the arrests of Zambada and Guzman Lopez remain murky.
Initial US media reports cited unidentified US officials as saying that Guzman Lopez had duped Zambada into boarding the plane by telling him they were going to inspect property along the US-Mexico border.
But The New York Times, citing three federal law enforcement officials, said what actually happened was far more dramatic.
Zambada was ambushed in Sinaloa’s state capital Culiacan at what he expected to be a “friendly meeting” with Guzman Lopez, the newspaper said, and there was a violent clash between bodyguards for the two men.
Zambada was handcuffed, had a bag put over his head and was forced into a car. He was then flown across the border in a Beechcraft King Air plane to Texas, where he was taken into custody by US agents.
Zambada’s lawyer, Frank Perez, has maintained that his client was “kidnapped” and taken to the United States against his will.
According to a US Drug Enforcement Administration report released in May, the “Chapitos” were engaged in an “internal battle” against Zambada, their father’s former partner.
The Times reported that the US government had no “real-time knowledge” of the specific methods that were used to bring Zambada to the United States. The Mexican government has also denied any advance knowledge of the operation.
The newspaper quoted current and former US officials as saying no formal deal had been reached with Guzman Lopez before his surrender, but “it was the culmination of a back channel that a small team of FBI agents had maintained with him and some of his brothers for years.”
Guzman Lopez’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, told reporters in Chicago following his arraignment that there was “no agreement between Joaquin Guzman (Lopez) and the government.”
The US State Department had offered a reward of $15 million for the arrest of Zambada and $5 million for the capture of Guzman Lopez.
DEA chief Anne Milgram said Zambada’s arrest “strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.”
