An ex-leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, Ismael Zambada Garc\u00eda, reached a plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday, allowing him to avoid the death penalty in exchange for a life sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zambada, 75, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to multiple charges, including drug trafficking. The plea deal mandates the forfeiture of approximately $15 billion in illicit gains. A court has set a sentencing date for January of next year, at which point Zambada is expected to receive a life sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously sought by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades, Zambada was apprehended last July in El Paso, Texas, after arriving from Mexico by plane with L\u00f3pez, the son of fellow Sinaloa cartel founder Joaqu\u00edn Guzm\u00e1n. According to Zambada’s lawyer, L\u00f3pez betrayed his client, leading to the arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his court appearance, Zambada stated that between 1980 and last year, the cartel trafficked about 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine, with a significant portion entering the U.S. In September of last year, Zambada had pleaded not guilty to 17 federal criminal charges, including murder and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Founded by Zambada and Guzm\u00e1n, the Sinaloa cartel is one of the world’s largest drug trafficking organizations. Guzm\u00e1n was arrested three times and escaped from prison twice before being extradited to the U.S. in 2017. He was convicted in 2018 on 10 counts, including drug trafficking, murder, and money laundering. In 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay $12.6 billion in fines. He is currently serving his sentence in a maximum-security prison in the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An ex-leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, Ismael Zambada Garc\u00eda, reached a plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday, allowing him to avoid the death penalty in exchange for a life sentence. Zambada, 75, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to multiple charges,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494,"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morelinks.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}