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Trump orders subject unit against cartels
Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada is acceptable to plead blameworthy adjacent week successful a cause trafficking lawsuit that accuses him of ordering torture, plotting murders and flooding the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and different illicit drugs.
A Brooklyn national justice connected Monday scheduled an Aug. 25 alteration of plea proceeding for Zambada, a longtime person of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. The improvement comes 2 weeks aft national prosecutors said they wouldn't question the decease punishment against him.
Zambada, 77, pleaded not guilty past twelvemonth to cause trafficking and related charges, including weapon and wealth laundering offenses.
Under Zambada and co-founder Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's leadership, prosecutors allege, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a determination subordinate into the largest cause trafficking enactment successful the world.
Judge Brian M. Cogan's bid connected Monday didn't supply details astir Zambada's blameworthy plea and didn't database the charges he's expected to plead blameworthy to. The aforesaid justice sentenced Guzmán to beingness down bars aft helium was convicted connected cause trafficking charges successful 2019.
Messages seeking remark were near for Zambada's lawyers. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's bureau successful Brooklyn declined to comment.
Zambada was arrested successful Texas past twelvemonth aft what helium has described arsenic a kidnapping successful Mexico.
Sought by U.S. instrumentality enforcement for much than 2 decades, helium was taken into custody aft arriving successful a backstage level astatine a Texas airdrome with Guzmán's son, Joaquín Guzmán López. Guzmán López has pleaded not blameworthy to national cause trafficking charges successful Chicago; his brother, Ovidio Guzmán López, pleaded blameworthy past month.
Zambada has said helium was kidnapped in Mexico and hauled to the U.S. by Guzmán López, whose lawyer denies those claims.
According to prosecutors, Zambada presided implicit a immense and convulsive operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a backstage information unit akin to an army, and a corps of "sicarios," oregon hitmen, who carried retired assassinations, kidnappings and torture. Just months earlier his arrest, helium ordered the execution of his ain nephew, prosecutors said.
On Aug. 5, prosecutors told Cogan successful a missive that Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed them not to prosecute the decease penalty for Zambada.
Accused Mexican kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada listens to the tribunal interpreter arsenic helium holds his earpiece arsenic the justice questions him astir imaginable lawyer conflicts during a proceeding astatine tribunal successful New York, Jan. 15, 2025, successful this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
Following the July arrests and Zambada's allegations of kidnapping, horrific warring erupted in Mexico betwixt a cartel faction loyal to him and different tied to the "Chapitos," Guzmán's sons.
The Chapitos person utilized corkscrews, electrocution and blistery chiles to torture their rivals while immoderate of their victims were "fed dormant oregon live to tigers," according to an indictment released by the U.S. Justice Department.
In caller months, bodies person appeared crossed Sinaloa, often near slung retired connected the streets oregon successful cars with either sombreros connected their heads or pizza slices oregon boxes pegged onto them with knives. The pizzas and sombreros person go informal symbols for the warring cartel factions, underscoring the brutality of their warfare.
Last week, Mexico sent 26 high-ranking cartel figures to the United States successful the latest large woody with the Trump medication arsenic American authorities ratchet up unit connected transgression networks smuggling drugs crossed the border.
Those handed implicit to U.S. custody see Abigael González Valencia, a person of "Los Cuinis," a radical intimately aligned with notorious cartel Jalisco New Generation, oregon CJNG. Another defendant, Roberto Salazar, is wanted successful transportation to the 2008 sidesplitting of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. Other salient figures person ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and different convulsive cause trafficking groups.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump directed the military to people cause cartels successful Latin America, a root acquainted with the substance confirmed to CBS News. It's not wide if oregon erstwhile the subject could instrumentality action.
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum responded by saying determination would beryllium "no penetration of Mexico."
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