“El Mayo’s” Move to New York Federal Court is to Avoid Murder Charges of US Citizens

“Socalj” for Borderland Beat

The agreed transfer of Ismael Zambada García, “El Mayo,” from Texas to a federal court in New York is part of a strategy by the defense to avoid the drug lord being tried on murder charges in the 2012 Texas, even though it would mean he faces charges of fentanyl trafficking, said sources familiar with the case.

Both are federal cases but the New York indictment does not have charges related to any murders.

“There are charges that he will avoid in New York and that he would have to answer to in the court of the Southern District of Texas, such as the charge of homicide, which could well be worth the death penalty and would make the trial against him more difficult, and that is why the defense preferred to negotiate with the prosecution,” said a person close to Zambada García’s family, who asked not to be identified.

Even though New York may be “easier,” the reality is that Zambada García faces 17 charges related to trafficking in cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, conspiracy, criminal association, threats, money laundering, possession of weapons for exclusive use, and international distribution of more than 5 thousand kilos of cocaine.

The file mentions members of the organization, such as Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa, who testified against Joaquín Guzmán Loera during the so-called “Trial of the Century,” and who would be called again.

“There is information showing that Zambada García, along with others, sent, between January 2004 and December 2008, almost 3 thousand kilos of cocaine to the United States, and he did this with the Cifuentes Villa organization,” the document reads.

The file also identifies another drug trafficker with whom Mayo would have also done business, a capo identified as Luis Agustín Caicedo Velandia “Don Lucho” from whom Zambada García would have bought more than 100 tons of cocaine between 2003 and 2010, until Don Lucho was arrested and Mayo would make negotiations with other Colombian cartels.

Texas Indictment Homicide Charges

The 2012 indictment in Western District of Texas was against Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia on murder and conspiracy charges connected with drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime. The indictment also charged 22 other people who prosecutors allege are connected with the cartel.

The 2010 kidnapping and killings of an American citizen and two members of his family during a wedding ceremony in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, because of the belief of ties with rival Juarez La Linea cartel.

The target was the family of the groom Rafael Morales Valencia, all residents of La Mesa, New Mexico. The three were kidnapped at the El Señor de la Misericordia church in Juarez, and another fatally shot at the wedding. Police found the bodies of the groom, his brother and his uncle three days after the wedding in the bed of a pickup truck.

“Based on the false belief that the victims were part of La Linea and that Guadalupe Morales-Arreola worked for the person responsible for his father’s death, Irvin Enriquez solicited the assistance of Jose Antonio Torres-Marrufo and his purported team of assassins to exact revenge,” stated a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Enriquez was sentenced in El Paso to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country.

The indictment also describes the 2009 kidnapping, killing and mutilation of a Texas resident “to answer for the loss of a 670-pound load of marijuana seized by the Border Patrol,” prosecutors said.

Investigators found the Texas resident’s body in Ciudad Juarez, according to the indictment. 30-year-old Sergio Saucedo, who was taken at gunpoint from his home in Texas, in front of the view of a school bus full of children and brought to Marrufo in Mexico.

“He had been beaten and strangled and his hands had been severed above the wrists and placed on his chest, to serve as a warning to those who might attempt to steal from the cartel,” the indictment says.

Two men, Rafael Vega and Cesar Obregon Reyes, were convicted in Saucedo’s murder and sentenced to life in prison in federal court. Both have maintained their innocence. A third man, Omar Obregon Ortiz, pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and sentenced to 100 months in prison.

According to the indictment, Torres Marrufo oversaw enforcement activities for the Sinaloa cartel since late 2007 or early 2008, but by the fall of 2008, cartel leaders expanded his role to include overseeing all drug-trafficking activities in the region around Juárez.

He also directed members of the cartel’s Gente Nueva organization, which officials in Mexico say he helped found, and the Artistas Asesinos gang, also known as Los Doble As/AAs and Los Mexicles a rival of the Barrio Azteca prison gang founded in El Paso, Texas.

He was extradited to the US in 2019. The following year, it was rumored that “El Jaguar” had cut a plea deal with US authorities in Texas. But in early 2022, he and several others were convicted and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison also for the killing of US Consulate employees in Juarez, Mexico, where Marrufo was a gunman alongside several Barrio Azetca members.

Alleged Los Aztecas Threats

According to author Anabel Hernandez, Mayo decided to transfer to New York due to prison death threats from the Barrio Azteca prison based gang.

“He was threatened with death by Los Aztecas in retaliation for the bloody war that took place for the control of Ciudad Juárez. The old drug trafficker understood that his life was really in danger.”

The communicator assured that even the US Department of Justice was notified about the risks that ‘El Mayo’ Zambada runs if he stays in Texas.

“The prosecution states: As the leader and founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, to which many members remain loyal and many rivals remain motivated to commit acts of retaliatory violence, the defendant’s incarceration and transfer pose extraordinary security concerns, including risks to the defendant himself and risks to the personnel who incarcerate and transfer him,” it revealed.

So far, the US government has kept the date of his transfer confidential, so it is unknown whether he is still in Texas or has already been placed under guard in a New York prison.

There is still no exact federal BOP record of “Mayo” under the name Ismael Zambada Garcia (the exactly spelling of his name on the 2012 arrest warrant and indictment) or similar format spelling.

Source Riodoce, Borderland Beat, Infobae, CNN, Borderland Beat