El Chapo Was Co-leader, Informant Tells US Drugs Trial

Fakhir Rizvi Published November 15, 2018 | 12:03 PM

Drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman co-headed the Sinaloa cartel, an informant told his US trial Wednesday, skewering defense claims that he was little more than a scapegoat and spilling the operational secrets of the criminal enterprise

New York, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Nov, 2018 ) :Drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman co-headed the Sinaloa cartel, an informant told his US trial Wednesday, skewering defense claims that he was little more than a scapegoat and spilling the operational secrets of the criminal enterprise.

Jesus "El Rey" Zambada, brother of still-at-large co-defendant Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, was one of the first witnesses to take the stand on the second day of what is expected to be a more than four-month trial.

In US custody since 2008, he testified at length about the import-export business of the Sinaloa, which rose to prominence after 1997, when Colombia changed the law, allowing its citizens to be extradited to the United States.

The change was enacted under pressure from Washington, looking to clamp down on drug trafficking. But instead, Mexican traffickers filled the void, bringing in cocaine by speedboats, fishing boats, planes and even commercial containers, which were then sent in their entirety to the United States.

The shipments generated "billions of Dollars" that Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers split between them, Zambada said.

Guzman, considered the world's largest drug trafficker since the death of Colombia's Pablo Escobar, is on trial in a Federal court in Brooklyn under draconian security arrangements after twice escaping from prison in Mexico.

He faces 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges that will likely see him incarcerated for the rest of his life in a maximum security US prison if he is convicted.

Accused of smuggling more than 155 tons of cocaine into the United States over 25 years, he listened attentively Wednesday, dressed in a dark suit and tie, and sometimes taking notes that he passed to his lawyers.