Thousands of people have died in Mexico as a result of the drug wars the Sinaloa cartel and its rivals have waged for years. Despite his high-level spot in the violent cartel, DEA agents and prosecutors who met Zambada-Niebla say he came across as more aristocrat than Scarface. His father ran the white-collar side of the cartel, plowing drug money into real estate and other ventures, while Guzman was on the operational side — dressing like the ranchers of Sinaloa state and not only ordering but also taking part in killings, authorities say.
After Zambada-Niebla was locked up in Chicago, his lawyers said he had provided the DEA with information about rival cartels in exchange for immunity from prosecution, even meeting with them in Mexico City. But he dropped that claim of immunity when he pleaded guilty in to trafficking more than a billion dollars in cocaine and heroin to the United States. When the Illinois State Police seized a kilo load of cocaine from a truck sent to the Chicago suburbs by Zambada-Niebla in June , the cartel ate the multimillion-dollar loss.
Margarito Flores has said he met with Zambada-Niebla, El Mayo and Guzman in the mountains of northern Mexico in October after the brothers agreed to cooperate with the U. After they talked about the drug business, Zambada-Niebla told Flores to find someone who could provide the cartel with military-grade U. Get me my shit, my guns.
The Flores brothers, who were known as the Twins, pleaded guilty to drug charges in and were given relatively light prison sentences of 14 years each.
Like his brother, Pedro Flores also testified against Guzman at his trial in Brooklyn. Saul Rodriguez, a Chicago drug trafficker, testified that Zambada-Niebla wanted the Flores twins killed.
Rodriguez and Zambada-Niebla had been held in the same segregation unit in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago. In , U. Know about breaking news as it happens. From approximately to , Zambada-Niebla oversaw shipments of narcotics from Central and South America into Mexico and eventually into the U.
The cartel covertly transported the drugs via private aircraft, submarines, container ships, fishing vessels, buses, tractor-trailers, automobiles, and other methods. Zambada-Niebla also oversaw the corresponding transfer of drug proceeds back to Mexico. Zambada-Niebla, 44, has been in law enforcement custody since March He pleaded guilty in to a drug conspiracy charge and agreed to cooperate with the U.
The sentence was announced by John R. The government acknowledged that its agents had in fact met with Zambada that day, but argued that it had been nothing more than abortive introduction, and that its agents had not promised Zambada immunity and in any event would not have been authorized to do so.
Judge Castillo eventually ruled that Zambada failed to prove that his meetings with DEA agents warranted a dismissal. After about a year in custody, he began cooperating with U.
In light of that cooperation, prosecutors recommended just 17 years in prison for their star informant, arguing that his cooperation significantly mitigated the harm he had caused. And he has done everything asked of him by the government, even when his cooperation came at a great personal cost.
In his statement to the judge, Zambada acknowledged the harm he had caused, and apologized to his victims and his family alike. The year sentence issued by Castillo includes credit for time served, including the 11 months Zambada spent in Mexican prisons prior to his extradition,so Zambada is likely to be reunited with his wife and children as a free man in as little as five years.
He will then be subject to an additional five years of supervised release, the terms of which ban him from any association with people he knows to be involved in the drug trade, possession of firearms, or drinking alcohol to excess.
Prior to sentencing Zambada, Judge Castillo took a moment to criticize the strategy of the war on drugs , arguing for a more humane solution to the issue of drug use.
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