HomeTop StoriesMexican cartel leader Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada in plea talks with US,...

Mexican cartel leader Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada in plea talks with US, stays with lawyer who represented son

U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday they are discussing a possible settlement Ishmael “El Mayo” Zambadathe long-elusive Mexican drug lord who was arrested last summer and whose son could testify against him if he goes to trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro said plea talks with Zambada, a leader of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, have so far failed to bear fruit, but prosecutors want to keep trying. A judge has scheduled a hearing for an update on April 22.

Zambada’s lead attorney, Frank Perez, declined to comment on the discussions.

It’s common for prosecutors and defense attorneys to explore whether they can reach an agreement, and the talks don’t necessarily go anywhere.

Zambada was an attentive and active participant during Wednesday’s hearing, which focused on whether he wanted Perez to continue representing him even though he also represented a potential government witness in the case: Zambada’s son Vicente Zambada.

“I don’t want another lawyer,” the father said through a court interpreter. “I want him even though this could be a conflict if he represents me and my son.”

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Alleged Mexican kingpin 'El Mayo' remains with the American lawyer who represented his son
Accused Mexican King Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada listens to the court interpreter while holding his earpiece as the judge questions him about possible lawyer conflicts during a hearing in court in New York, January 15, 2025 in this courtroom sketch.

Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS


The younger Zambada himself was indicted and took a plea deal in the long-running and extensive U.S. prosecution of Sinaloa cartel figures. He testified for the government at the trial of the infamous and now-imprisoned cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Ismael Zambada worked with Guzmán and kept less of a profile. He was seen to concentrate more on smuggling than on the extremes of brutality. He served as a strategist and dealmaker handling day-to-day operations, authorities say.

During Guzmán’s trial, Vicente Zambada told how his father and Guzmán ran the cartel together. At one point he described how corrupt Mexican politicians wondered if the syndicate could help them ship 100 tons of cocaine in an oil tanker.

“They wanted to know if my father and Chapo could supply that amount of coke,” he told a jury in the same federal courthouse in Brooklyn where his father is being prosecuted. At another point, Vicente Zambada recalled hearing a rival drug gang leader say he wanted to kill Ismael Zambada and Guzmán to avenge a failed assassination attempt.

Prosecutors said in a court document last month that the son might be called to testify against his father, which could pose a conflict of interest for Perez. For example, he would be hindered in cross-examining the son because of the loyalty he owes to both clients.

Defense attorneys sometimes have potential conflicts of interest regarding a client, and federal courts have outlined the steps judges must take to address such situations. One of these is to have defendants advised by an independent lawyer when considering what to do about the possible conflict. Zambada had one at Wednesday’s hearing.

Zambada said he realized there could be problems if Perez represented him and his son — “for example, that he will have to hide information he received from Vicente from me.”

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan ultimately agreed to allow Perez to stay on the case, noting that Ismael Zambada also has other attorneys who could handle every piece of the case involving his son.

Law enforcement officials searched for the elder Zambada for years surprise arrest in July at an airport near El Paso, Texas, after arriving on a private plane with one of Guzmán’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López. He was also wanted by American authorities.

Zambada has said he was kidnapped in Mexico and towed to the US by Guzmán López, whose lawyer denies these claims. Joaquín Guzmán López and his brother Ovidio are in settlement negotiations with the U.S. government, their lawyers said in a Chicago courtroom this month.

Following the July arrests and Zambada kidnapping allegations, Gruesome fighting broke out in Mexico between a cartel faction loyal to him and another linked to the ‘Chapitos’, Guzmán’s sons.

The Chapitos have used corkscrews, electrocution and hot chili peppers torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers,” according to a US Department of Justice indictment.

In recent months, bodies have turned up across Sinaloa, often left on the streets or in cars sombreros on their heads or pizza slices or boxes attached to them with knives. The pizzas and sombreros have become informal symbols for the warring cartel factions, underscoring the brutality of their warfare.

The series of events also strained relations between Mexico and the United States.

First, the then president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the current one President Claudia Sheinbaum laid some of the blame for the bloodshed at Washington’s feet, saying the US arrests had caused problems.

The outgoing US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, responded that it was “incomprehensible” to suggest that the cartel wars were Washington’s fault. He then claimed that the Mexican government had stopped working with Washington to combat cartels and was burying its head in the sand over police violence and corruption.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry responded by expressing “surprise” by the envoy’s statement in a formal note to the US embassy.

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