The leader and co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, has entered the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, after appearing before a US court the day before, pleading not guilty to charges related to organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering that are brought against him.
‘El Mayo’ will share a penitentiary with the former Mexican Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, convicted of having received bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, the newspaper ‘Milenio’ reported.
Zambada, 76, appeared on Friday to have the 17 charges against him read before federal judge James Cho in the Eastern District Court of New York, the same district in which drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán was sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking and García Luna was found guilty of the aforementioned crime.
Zambada — accused of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute drugs internationally, among other charges — was arrested on July 25 at an airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, after arriving on a private plane with Joaquín Guzmán López, son of drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, who had a deal with the United States authorities and who was the one who handed him over after kidnapping him in Mexico.
