The co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel is reportedly showing signs of mental dementia.
The founder and former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael El Mayo Zambada García, hopes that the benefits of pleading guilty to drug trafficking in the United States will allow him to avoid serving his sentence in the Florence Supermax prison in Colorado and dying in his homeland.
Frank Pérez, Zambada García’s attorney, spoke exclusively with MILENIO to detail what led El Mayo, one of the world’s most powerful drug traffickers, to accept two racketeering charges in August, even though he knew there was no way to avoid a life sentence.
“Number one, he pleaded guilty because he’s guilty and wanted to accept responsibility,” the attorney said.
El Mayo wants to avoid Supermax.
“What we’re hoping for are the conditions, where they’re going to send him. We don’t want them to send him to ADX (Florence, Colorado). We want a prison. He’s already an elderly man, where they can give him the health care he needs, and family visits.”
The ADMAX or ADX prison in Florence, Colorado, is one of the most restrictive criminal detention centers in the United States. Located in a mountainous area, it houses high-profile criminals, including El Mayo Zambada’s close friend, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, who has denounced in several letters that he suffers inhumane treatment inside the prison.
Solitary confinement, days on end without being able to leave prison, and almost zero contact with his family are some of the Mexican’s complaints.
Frank Pérez, who has also represented other relatives of El Mayo in their criminal cases in the United States, such as his brother Jesús Reynaldo and his son Vicente, said that Ismael Zambada still hopes to be repatriated to Mexico, to serve his sentence on Mexican soil.
“The gentleman did want to return to Mexico. He wants to die here in Mexico, in his country, but who knows? That’s how politics are, and who knows what will happen in the future?”
In February, through his defense attorney, Zambada filed a petition with the Mexican consulate in New York requesting repatriation to Mexico, citing his irregular departure from the country. He was also still fighting a prosecutor’s office seeking the death penalty.
Regarding the request, Pérez asserts that he hasn’t received any response from the Mexican government: “No, nothing, I haven’t heard anything about that.”
This Is El Mayo Zambada’s Life in the U.S.
Frank Pérez took the opportunity to provide a glimpse into the Mexican’s daily life in the dangerous inmates unit at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he awaits sentencing scheduled for January 2026.
According to the attorney, Zambada García reads several books on Mexican history, a subject he became interested in before his arrest. He also owns a radio with which he listens to some Spanish-language stations.
However, prison health authorities have detected that he suffers from early stages of dementia, so his psychological health is a priority for his representatives.
El Mayo’s defense attorney insisted, as he did after the Mexican’s guilty plea, that his client’s secrets will die with him. Zambada García is not an informant, collaborator, or witness for any U.S. security agency, and an initial clue is that, if he were, he would have first requested that his client’s family be relocated to U.S. soil for their own safety.
“Mr. Zambada isn’t cooperating with any government, American or Mexican, no one. He isn’t doing it because it’s not in the gentleman’s interest. The gentleman is 75 years old, he’s facing life in prison. I hope that’s his sentence, so he’s not gaining anything, and the gentleman doesn’t want it,” he told MILENIO.
In a written statement provided to MILENIO, Pérez elaborated on his explanation.
This is how the interview went
El Mayo cooperates with US authorities
“Recent media reports suggesting that Ismael Zambada García is cooperating with federal authorities are inaccurate. While Ismael Zambada García pleaded guilty in this matter, he has not cooperated with the government nor signed any cooperation agreement,” Pérez wrote.
According to the statement, it all stems from a misunderstanding of criminal law and procedure in the United States, under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The attorney explained that a guilty plea is only a conscious, voluntary, and factually based statement of what has been alleged.
“Acknowledging a factual basis is not the same as cooperating with the government. It simply confirms that the guilty plea is based on facts already presented to the court. A defendant can admit wrongdoing to resolve his own case without cooperating with the government in the investigations or prosecution of third parties.”
“In this case, previous testimony in recent trials had already described the conduct; the defendant’s admission only served to confirm the legal sufficiency of the statement, not to provide new information, expand on previous testimony, or offer cooperation,” Pérez concludes.
Zambada and his attorney maintain that in July 2024, the Mexican drug lord was kidnapped in Culiacán, Sinaloa, by Joaquín Guzmán López, known as El Güero, one of Chapo Guzmán’s sons. After his kidnapping, he was put against his will on a small plane to be handed over to U.S. federal agents in New Mexico, as loot with Guzmán López’s name written on it.
Source: Milenio
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