CHICAGO (WLS) — There are new questions in the bizarre cross-border case of two top drug cartel figures who flew from Mexico to Texas and are now embroiled in a Chicago legal skirmish.
Despite his frail appearance, 76-year-old Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was the world’s most wanted drug fugitive until five weeks ago today, when El Mayo landed in Texas on a private plane flown from Mexico.
Also onboard was 38-year-old Joaquín Guzman Lopez, son of notorious drug kingpin El Chapo, who now sits in a U.S. maximum security prison.
Weeks later, there are new questions about whether El Mayo was violently kidnapped by El Chapo’s son, or whether Chapo’s kid trapped him in an elaborate surrender scheme.
El Mayo Zambada’s Sinaloa Cartel has been responsible for 80% of the street drugs sold in Chicago for decades, according to federal law enforcement, and the cartel has a lock on big city sales across the U.S.
That made him a top American fugitive, with a $15 million bounty on his head when he landed in Texas last month, accompanied by the son of the infamous El Chapo, who co-founded the Sinaloa cartel with El Mayo.
Both Chapo’s son and El Mayo were taken into custody by US agents.
Zambada now is held in an El Paso jail while Guzman Lopez was flown to Chicago to face charges here, and is in custody at the MCC.
In a new filing by federal prosecutors in Texas, attorneys told a judge El Mayo needs to face justice for his “uncountable victims… in every district across the nation.”
If you do count American drug overdose victims since El Mayo’s first indictment in Chicago in 2009, it totals more than one-million dead.
In the new filing, prosecutors noted his seven Illinois indictments since 2009, including two filed in 2014 alone.
In Mexico, where the cartel created corridors of violence, authorities have put out an arrest warrant for Guzman Lopez, claiming he committed treason by kidnapping Mexican citizen El Mayo.
The attorney for Chapo’s son, Jeffrey Lichtman, has taken to his own podcast to blast Mexican leaders.
In a recent episode of “Beyond the Legal Limit,” Lichtman said, “The Mexican government, instead of celebrating the capture of the world’s biggest drug dealer, is charging the person they claim is responsible for doing what they refused to do for 40 years, namely capturing him and stopping his drug dealing, which to me is odd.”
ABC 7 chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Gil Soffer said he believes the Mexican government is saving face.
“No government wants its citizens to be taken without its knowledge to another country and then charged there,” Soffer said. “That, of course, is what has happened here. And I’m sure they’re very jealous of their sovereignty and their integrity, and they’re trying to protect it.”
Soffer tonight said the U.S. is unlikely to turn over El Chapo’s son to Mexico until he is tried here in Chicago and sentenced.
For now, Guzman Lopez is being held in Chicago without bond until a scheduled court date late next month.
El Mayo is currently in custody in Texas and his next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 9, as authorities work to transfer him to New York where he will face trial.
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Publish date : 2024-08-29 18:06:00
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