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Tag: zambada

  • No evidence of politicians linked to Sinaloa cartel, Sheinbaum says

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    MEXICO CITY — Mexican investigators have found no evidence that sitting Mexican politicians or military commanders are collaborating with the Sinaloa cartel, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday.

    “We don’t have at this time any proof against any public servant, or member of the Army [or] Navy,” Sheinbaum responded Wednesday when asked about allegations from Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel.

    But she vowed that Mexico would prosecute any officials found to be on cartel payrolls. “We won’t cover up for anyone,” the president said at her regular morning news conference.

    Upon entering a guilty plea Monday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Zambada cited a decades-long culture of official graft as essential to the success of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s richest crime syndicates.

    “The organization I led promoted corruption in my home country by paying police, military commanders and politicians,” Zambada, 75, declared, in comments widely publicized in Mexico. “It goes back to the very beginning when I was a young man starting out, and it continued for all these years.”

    Zambada’s comments — citing cartel payoffs across the rule of all major Mexican political parties — added yet another layer of corroboration to what has long been public knowledge: Organized crime has thrived thanks to collaboration with Mexican lawmakers, police officers and soldiers.

    In comments Monday, U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said that Zambada “operated with impunity at the highest level of the Mexican drug trafficking world, by paying bribes to government officials, by bribing law enforcement officers.”

    Zambada’s charges come at an extremely sensitive moment, as the Trump administration weighs the possibility of unilateral U.S. military strikes against cartel targets. Sheinbaum has said repeatedly that her government views any unilateral U.S. action on Mexican territory as an egregious violation of sovereignty.

    Zambada’s comments in court have reverberated in Mexico, where Sheinbaum marks her first year in office on Oct. 1.

    Commentators have speculated about whether Zambada’s case and those of other alleged high-level traffickers in U.S. custody — including two sons of the imprisoned Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada’s former partner in founding the Sinaloa gang — may produce fresh corruption allegations against “narco-politicians,” including members of Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena political bloc.

    Critics here have assailed Sheinbaum’s government for not moving to prosecute Morena bigwigs with purported ties to organized crime.

    “Mexico was once again shown to be a country without rule of law,” wrote columnist Pascal Beltrán del Río in the Mexican daily Excélsior, following the announcement of Zambada’s plea. “If Mexico does nothing … it runs the risk that the United States — out of its own interests — will begin to take in hand the arsenal of information that El Mayo and the rest of the captive capos are surely providing.”

    Sheinbaum regularly touts what she calls an ongoing cartel crackdown. She has dispatched thousands of troops to Mexico’s northern border with the United States, jailed hundreds of alleged trafficking operatives and turned over dozens of suspects over to U.S. authorities. Her political rivals say it’s mostly show to appease the Trump administration.

    While no current lawmakers or military brass had been implicated in corruption, some municipal and state police had been tied to cartel activity, Omar García Harfuch, Sheinbaum’s security chief, told reporters.

    “If an investigation shows any politician or public functionary linked to any criminal group, the complaint would be presented and an investigation started,” said García Harfuch, whose official title is secretary of security and civilian protection. “But we don’t have any proof at this time.”

    Zambada was arrested by U.S. authorities last year during the final year of the administration of ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s predecessor and founder of the ruling Morena political party.

    Jeffrey Lichtman, the attorney representing El Chapo’s sons in their U.S. cases, has explicitly called out Sheinbaum in recent weeks, alleging that she has been “acting as … the public relations arm of the Zambada drug trafficking organization.” Sheinbaum subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against Lichtman in a Mexican court. Lichtman fired back in a post on Instagram, calling the president’s lawsuit “a cheap effort to score political points.”

    Sheinbaum has insisted that official corruption has largely ended since López Obrador took office in 2018 — an assertion dismissed as absurd by opposition lawmakers. López Obrador repeatedly rejected allegations that drug-trafficking money helped fund several of his political campaigns, but he charged that graft was rampant in past administrations.

    The most notorious case was that of Genaro García Luna, a former federal security chief who is serving a 38-year prison term in the United States after his conviction for receiving millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. García Luna served under former Mexican President Felipe Calderón, political arch-enemy of López Obrador.

    As part of his plea agreement, U.S. authorities said, Zambada also agreed to hand over $15 billion in alleged drug-trade proceeds generated since the 1980s. While experts said it’s unlikely that the massive sum will ever be collected, Sheinbaum said Wednesday that Mexico would demand a part of any such haul “for the people of Mexico.”

    Many questions still remain about the mysterious operation that culminated in the arrest of Zambada in July 2024.

    Sheinbaum has complained that Washington has yet to provide any clarification about the sequence of events that led to Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López — a son of El Chapo Guzmán — being flown from Mexico to the United States. The two were arrested outside El Paso after arriving on a private plane that reportedly took off from outside Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state.

    Zambada has said that he was set up and kidnapped by Guzmán López, a former head of the Sinaloa cartel faction known as Los Chapitos.

    Ken Salazar, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, told reporters last year that Zambada was brought to the United States against his will — but that no U.S. personnel, resources or aircraft were involved. U.S. authorities were “surprised” when Zambada and Guzmán turned up on the U.S. side of the border, Salazar told reporters.

    But Mexican officials are skeptical. They suspect that Washington orchestrated the entire operation, likely enlisting the support of El Chapo’s son to abduct Zambada and transport him to U.S. territory.

    The apparent kidnapping of Zambada triggered a bloody civil war within the Sinaloa cartel — pitting Zambada loyalists against supporters of Los Chapitos — that has left hundreds dead. The intra-cartel struggle continues to claim casualties in Sinaloa state.

    Staff writer Keegan Hamilton in Brooklyn and special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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    Patrick J. McDonnell

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  • Long-elusive Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada pleads guilty in US

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    Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded guilty Monday to U.S. drug trafficking charges, saying he was sorry for helping to flood the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and other illicit substances and for fueling deadly violence in Mexico.“I recognize the great harm illegal drugs have done to the people of the United States, of Mexico, and elsewhere,” he said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “I take responsibility for my role in all of it and I apologize to everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions.”Under the leadership of Zambada and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a regional player into the largest drug trafficking organization in the world, prosecutors say.“Culpable,” Zambada said, using the Spanish word for “guilty,” as he entered his plea.He acknowledged the extent of the Sinaloa operation, including underlings who built relationships with cocaine producers in Colombia, oversaw the importation of cocaine to Mexico by boat and plane and the smuggling of the drug across the U.S.-Mexico border. He acknowledged that people working for him paid bribes to Mexican police and military commanders “so they could operate freely,” going all the way back to when the cartel was just starting out.Zambada was arrested in Texas last year. He entered his plea two weeks after prosecutors said they wouldn’t seek the death penalty against him, a development that his attorney has called an important step in resolving the case.The lawyer, Frank Perez, said outside court Monday that “the outcome was good,” adding that Zambada “wanted to accept responsibility, and he did.”Zambada, 77, is due to be sentenced Jan. 13 to life in prison.He traced his involvement in the illegal drug business to his teenage years, when — after leaving school with a sixth-grade education — he planted marijuana for the first time in 1969. He said he went on to sell heroin and other drugs, but especially cocaine. From 1980 until last year, he and his cartel were responsible for transporting at least 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine, “most of which went to the United States,” he said.Prosecutors said in his indictment that he and the cartel also trafficked in fentanyl and methamphetamine.Considered a good negotiator, Zambada was seen as the cartel’s strategist and dealmaker who was more involved in its day-to-day doings than the more flamboyant Guzmán. Nevertheless, prosecutors have said Zambada also was enmeshed in the group’s violence, at one point ordering the murder of his own nephew.Zambada pleaded guilty to charges of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise between 1989 and 2024 and racketeering conspiracy, which encompasses involvement in a number of crimes from 2000 to 2012.Prosecutors say he presided over a violent, highly militarized cartel with a private security force armed with powerful weapons and a cadre of “sicarios,” or hitmen, that carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture. He acknowledged in his plea that he “directed people under my control to kill others” to serve the cartel’s interests.“Many innocent people were also killed,” he said in an eight-minute address to the court Monday.Zambada appeared momentarily unsteady as he arrived in a Brooklyn federal courtroom; a marshal grabbed his arm to direct him to his seat among his attorneys at the defense table.As Judge Brian M. Cogan described the charges in Zambada’s plea agreement, the bearded ex-Sinaloa boss sat attentively, at times brushing his right hand through his white hair.Guzmán was sentenced to life behind bars following his conviction in the same federal court in Brooklyn in 2019.The Sinaloa cartel is Mexico’s oldest criminal group, with various incarnations dating to the 1970s. It is a drug trafficking power player: A former Mexican cabinet member was convicted of taking bribes to help the cartel.U.S. law enforcement sought Zambada for more than two decades, but he was never arrested in any country until he arrived in Texas last year on a private plane with one of Guzmán’s sons, 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.Zambada has said he was kidnapped in Mexico and taken against his will to the U.S.Zambada’s arrest touched off deadly fighting in Mexico between rival Sinaloa cartel factions, apparently pitting his loyalists against backers of Guzmán’s sons, dubbed the Chapitos — a term that translates to “little Chapos.”Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed.

    Former Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded guilty Monday to U.S. drug trafficking charges, saying he was sorry for helping to flood the U.S. with cocaine, heroin and other illicit substances and for fueling deadly violence in Mexico.

    “I recognize the great harm illegal drugs have done to the people of the United States, of Mexico, and elsewhere,” he said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “I take responsibility for my role in all of it and I apologize to everyone who has suffered or been affected by my actions.”

    Under the leadership of Zambada and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa cartel evolved from a regional player into the largest drug trafficking organization in the world, prosecutors say.

    “Culpable,” Zambada said, using the Spanish word for “guilty,” as he entered his plea.

    He acknowledged the extent of the Sinaloa operation, including underlings who built relationships with cocaine producers in Colombia, oversaw the importation of cocaine to Mexico by boat and plane and the smuggling of the drug across the U.S.-Mexico border. He acknowledged that people working for him paid bribes to Mexican police and military commanders “so they could operate freely,” going all the way back to when the cartel was just starting out.

    Zambada was arrested in Texas last year. He entered his plea two weeks after prosecutors said they wouldn’t seek the death penalty against him, a development that his attorney has called an important step in resolving the case.

    The lawyer, Frank Perez, said outside court Monday that “the outcome was good,” adding that Zambada “wanted to accept responsibility, and he did.”

    Zambada, 77, is due to be sentenced Jan. 13 to life in prison.

    He traced his involvement in the illegal drug business to his teenage years, when — after leaving school with a sixth-grade education — he planted marijuana for the first time in 1969. He said he went on to sell heroin and other drugs, but especially cocaine. From 1980 until last year, he and his cartel were responsible for transporting at least 1.5 million kilograms of cocaine, “most of which went to the United States,” he said.

    Prosecutors said in his indictment that he and the cartel also trafficked in fentanyl and methamphetamine.

    Considered a good negotiator, Zambada was seen as the cartel’s strategist and dealmaker who was more involved in its day-to-day doings than the more flamboyant Guzmán. Nevertheless, prosecutors have said Zambada also was enmeshed in the group’s violence, at one point ordering the murder of his own nephew.

    Zambada pleaded guilty to charges of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise between 1989 and 2024 and racketeering conspiracy, which encompasses involvement in a number of crimes from 2000 to 2012.

    Prosecutors say he presided over a violent, highly militarized cartel with a private security force armed with powerful weapons and a cadre of “sicarios,” or hitmen, that carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture. He acknowledged in his plea that he “directed people under my control to kill others” to serve the cartel’s interests.

    “Many innocent people were also killed,” he said in an eight-minute address to the court Monday.

    Zambada appeared momentarily unsteady as he arrived in a Brooklyn federal courtroom; a marshal grabbed his arm to direct him to his seat among his attorneys at the defense table.

    As Judge Brian M. Cogan described the charges in Zambada’s plea agreement, the bearded ex-Sinaloa boss sat attentively, at times brushing his right hand through his white hair.

    Guzmán was sentenced to life behind bars following his conviction in the same federal court in Brooklyn in 2019.

    The Sinaloa cartel is Mexico’s oldest criminal group, with various incarnations dating to the 1970s. It is a drug trafficking power player: A former Mexican cabinet member was convicted of taking bribes to help the cartel.

    U.S. law enforcement sought Zambada for more than two decades, but he was never arrested in any country until he arrived in Texas last year on a private plane with one of Guzmán’s sons, 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.

    Zambada has said he was kidnapped in Mexico and taken against his will to the U.S.

    Zambada’s arrest touched off deadly fighting in Mexico between rival Sinaloa cartel factions, apparently pitting his loyalists against backers of Guzmán’s sons, dubbed the Chapitos — a term that translates to “little Chapos.”

    Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed.

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  • Cartel boss ‘El Mayo’ to plead guilty. Will he spill secrets about corruption in Mexico?

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    BROOKLYN — For more than four decades, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada ruled from the shadows. While other top Mexican drug traffickers were killed or extradited to the United States to face justice, Zambada remained comfortably ensconced atop his empire, exporting tons of cocaine, meth, heroin and fentanyl around the globe from his stronghold in the Pacific state of Sinaloa.

    Long after the downfall of his Sinaloa cartel partner, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada continued to operate with impunity, always a step ahead of the law — until eventually it caught up to him, too.

    Now the question is whether he’ll take others down with him.

    Zambada, 75, will mark a final chapter Monday afternoon in his legendary criminal career when he is set to appear before a federal judge in Brooklyn and plead guilty to an array of charges for leading a “continuing criminal enterprise” from the late 1980s until his arrest last year. He admitted to money laundering, kidnapping, murder and drug conspiracies.

    Zamabada’s stunning downfall began last July when he arrived on a private jet at a small airport near El Paso, Texas. In the immedate aftermath, rumors swirled that Zambada may have orchestrated his surrender in order to undergo medical treatment or reunite with his brother and several sons who are believed to be living under witness protection after pleading guilty and cooperating with U.S. authorities to resolve their own criminal cases.

    Zambada, however, has vehemently denied that his arrival in the U.S. was prearranged. A few weeks after he was taken into custody, he alleged he was set up and kidnapped by one of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, a leader of the cartel faction known as Los Chapitos, or the Little Chapos.

    Zambada claimed in a letter released by his lawyer that he was lured to what he thought would be a meeting between Sinaloa’s governor and another prominent politician, only to be ambushed, zip-tied, forced onto the plane by Guzmán López and delivered to U.S. authorities.

    Guzmán López, 39, is facing his own federal case in Chicago, where he has pleaded not guilty to drug and conspiracy charges. His younger brother, Ovidio Guzmán, recently pleaded guilty to similar charges, with court filings revealing that he has agreed to cooperate with U.S. investigators.

    A mugshot of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, released by U.S. authorities during the trial of his longtime partner in the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

    (U.S. Department of Justice)

    There is no indication that Zambada has a cooperation agreement. But his family’s history, combined with the fact that he has agreed to plead guilty rather than take his case to trial, is fueling speculation that he could be prepared to spill secrets about high-level corruption.

    Paul Craine, the top official in Mexico for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from 2012 to 2017, said of Zambada: “He knows more than anybody.”

    Craine, who retired from the DEA now runs a private security firm, said it’s unlikely that federal prosecutors would ever agree to a deal that gives the kingpin anything less than life in prison.

    Zambada was already spared the death penalty, but the government could dangle other benefits, he said, such as relocating family members to the United States for their safety or allowing him to serve his time somewhere cushier than the Colorado “supermax” prison where El Chapo and others deemed extreme security risks are held in near total isolation.

    Zambada, Craine said, has knowledge about “40 years of the top leadership of the military and the government [in Mexico] that he was directly paying and had co-opted.”

    “He’s the godfather,” Craine said. “He’s the consistency across everything.”

    Zambada’s case is playing out during a delicate moment in U.S.-Mexico relations, with President Trump using tariffs as a cudgel to force action against the Sinaloa cartel and others responsible for shipping fentanyl and other drugs north across the Rio Grande. Trump designated Zambada’s group and others as terrorist organizations earlier this year, and has floated the possibility of the U.S. military taking action on the Mexican side of the border.

    Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has sought to appease Trump by handing over dozens of reputed high-ranking cartel figures for prosecution by U.S. authorities, but Craine said those offerings may not be enough.

    “There’s more value now in being able to target a high-level corrupt criminal political figure than there is in the biggest drug trafficker in Mexico,” he said.

    Other former federal law enforcement officials echoed that assessment. Adam Braverman, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego who oversaw the indictments of Zambada and several of his sons, called Monday’s guilty plea “a monumental day for the Department of Justice.”

    Braverman, who now works in private practice, said if Zambada were to cooperate, merely giving up other cartel figures would not be enough to make it worth the bargain.

    “When you’re at the top of the chain, there’s nobody else to cooperate against,” he said. “You’re talking about generals, governors — potentially presidents of Mexico.”

    Joaquín Guzmán Lopez and "El Mayo" Zambada

    Joaquín Guzmán Lopez (left), a son of the Sinaloa Cartel leader known as “El Chapo,” and longtime cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada (Right) in partially redacted photos released by the Mexican government following their arrests in El Paso, Texas, in 2024.

    (Government of Mexico)

    Zambada claimed in his letter last year that he was invited to a meeting near Sinaloa’s capital Culiacán, where he expected to help mediate a dispute between the city’s former mayor, Héctor Melesio Cuén, and his political rival, Sinaloa’s current governor, Rubén Rocha Moya.

    Melesio Cuén turned up shot to death on the day of Zambada’s arrest. Rocha Moya, a Morena party member, has denied any knowledge of the kidnapping plot, pointing to flight records that show he took a family trip to Los Angeles as the events were playing out.

    Mexican federal authorities have cited several suspicious irregularities in the investigation into Melesio Cuén’s killing by Sinaloan state authorities, including the abrupt cremation of his body.

    With tensions already running high, Guillermo Valdes Castellanos, a former head of the national intelligence agency that is Mexico’s equivalent of the CIA, said Zambada’s plea means some of Mexico’s political elites must now be sweating bullets.

    “[The Americans] are going to concentrate on receiving information about all of the politicians who protected [El Mayo], who helped him from the army, the police, etc.,” he said. “The fact that he may have more solid information to accuse the Mexican politicians and authorities involved is what’s making people very nervous here.”

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    Keegan Hamilton

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  • U.S. declines to pursue death penalty against trio of accused Mexican cartel kingpins

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    Federal authorities in the United States revealed Tuesday that they will not seek the death penalty against three reputed Mexican drug cartel leaders, including an alleged former partner of the infamous “El Chapo” and the man accused of orchestrating the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

    Court filings showed decisions handed down in the trio of prosecutions, all being held in Brooklyn, N.Y.

    The cases involve drug and conspiracy charges against Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 75, charged with running a powerful faction of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel; Rafael Caro Quintero, 72, who allegedly masterminded the DEA agent’s torture and murder in 1985; and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, 62, also known as El Viceroy, who is under indictment as the ex-boss of the Juárez cartel.

    Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York filed a letter in each case “to inform the Court and the defense that the Attorney General has authorized and directed this Office not to seek the death penalty.”

    The decision comes despite calls by President Trump use capital punishment against drug traffickers and the U.S. government ratcheting up pressure against Mexico to dismantle organized crime groups and to stanch the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs across the border.

    A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    It’s rare for the death penalty to be in play against high-level Mexican cartel figures. Mexico long ago abolished capital punishment and typically extradites its citizens on the condition that they are spared death.

    In Zambada’s case, the standard restrictions did not apply because he was not extradited. Zambada was brought to the U.S. in July 2024 by a son of his longtime associate, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Zambada alleges he was ambushed and kidnapped in Sinaloa by Joaquín Guzmán López, who forced him onto an airplane bound for a small airport outside El Paso.

    Zambada has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and remains jailed in Brooklyn while his case proceeds. A court filing in June said prosecutors and the defense had “discussed the potential for a resolution short of trial,” suggesting plea negotiations are underway.

    We’re going to be asking [that] everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts

    — President Trump in 2022

    Frank Perez, the lawyer representing Zambada, issued a statement Tuesday to The Times that said: “We welcome the government’s decision not to pursue the death penalty against our client. This marks an important step toward achieving a fair and just resolution.”

    Federal authorities announced in May that Guzmán López, 39, an accused leader of the Sinaloa cartel faction known as “Los Chapitos,” would also not face the death penalty. He faces an array of drug smuggling and conspiracy charges in a case pending before the federal court in Chicago.

    Another son of El Chapo, Ovidio Guzmán López, 35, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms charges last month in Chicago. Court filings show he has agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities in other investigations.

    Caro Quintero and Carrillo Fuentes were two of the biggest names among a group of 29 men handed over by Mexico to the U.S. in February. The unusual mass transfer was conducted outside the typical extradition process, which left open the possibility of the death penalty.

    Reputed to be a founding member of Mexico’s powerful Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s, Caro Quintero is allegedly responsible for the brutal slaying of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena 40 years ago.

    The killing, portrayed on the Netflix show “Narcos: Mexico” and recounted in many books and documentaries, led to a fierce response by U.S. authorities, but Caro Quintero managed to elude justice for decades. Getting him on U.S. soil was portrayed as a major victory by Trump administration officials.

    Derek Maltz, the DEA chief in February, said in a statement that Caro Quintero had “unleashed violence, destruction, and death across the United States and Mexico, has spent four decades atop DEA’s most wanted fugitives list.”

    Carrillo Fuentes is perhaps best known as the younger brother of another Mexican drug trafficker, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the legendary “Lord of the Skies,” who died in 1997. Once close to El Chapo, El Mayo and other Sinaloa cartel leaders, the younger Carrillo Funtes split off to form his own cartel in the city of Juárez, triggering years of bloody cartel warfare.

    Kenneth J. Montgomery, the lawyer for Carrillo Fuentes, said Tuesday that his client was “extremely grateful” for the government’s decision to not seek the death penalty. “I thought it was the right decision,” he said. “In a civilized society, I don’t think the death penalty should ever be an option.”

    Trump has been an ardent supporter of capital punishment. In January, he signed an order that directs the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions.

    The executive order directed the attorney general to pursue the death penalty in cases that involve the killing of law enforcement officers, among other factors. For years, Trump has loudly called for executing convicted drug traffickers. He reiterated the call for executions again in 2022 when announcing his intent to run again for president.

    “We’re going to be asking [for] everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” Trump said.

    Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi lifted a moratorium on federal executions in February, reversing a policy that began under the Biden administration. In April, Bondi announced intentions to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man charged with assassinating a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York City.

    Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, reacted with surprise upon learning that the Trump administration had decided to not pursue capital cases against the accused kingpins, particularly Caro Quintero.

    Klapper, who is now a defense attorney, speculated that Mexico is strongly opposed to executions of its citizens and officials may have exerted diplomatic pressure to spare the lives of the three men, perhaps offering to send more kingpins in the future.

    “While my initial reaction is one of shock given this administration’s embrace of the death penalty, perhaps there’s conversations taking place behind the scenes in which Mexico has said, ‘If you want more of these, you can’t ask to kill any of our citizens.’”

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    Keegan Hamilton

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