Former Sinaloa cartel kingpin Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada set to plead guilty

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is set to plead guilty next week in a drug trafficking case that accuses him of ordering torture, plotting murders and flooding the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs.

A Brooklyn federal judge on Monday scheduled an Aug. 25 change of plea hearing for Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The development comes two weeks after federal prosecutors said they wouldn't seek the death penalty against him.

Zambada, 77, pleaded not guilty last year to drug trafficking and related charges, including gun and money laundering offenses.

Under Zambada and co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s leadership, prosecutors allege, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a regional player into the largest drug trafficking organization in the world.

Judge Brian M. Cogan’s order on Monday didn't provide details about Zambada’s guilty plea and didn't list the charges he’s expected to plead guilty to. The same judge sentenced Guzmán to life behind bars after he was convicted on drug trafficking charges in 2019.

Messages seeking comment were left for Zambada’s lawyers. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn declined to comment.

Zambada was arrested in Texas last year after what he has described as a kidnapping in Mexico.

Sought by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades, he was taken into custody after arriving in a private plane at a Texas airport with Guzmán’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López. Guzmán López has pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in Chicago; his brother, Ovidio Guzmán López, pleaded guilty last month.

According to prosecutors, Zambada presided over a vast and violent operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a private security force akin to an army, and a corps of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture. Just months before his arrest, he ordered the murder of his own nephew, prosecutors said.

On Aug. 5, prosecutors told Cogan in a letter that Attorney General Pam Bondi had directed them not to pursue the death penalty for Zambada.

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Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.