"El Vicentillo", Son of Mayo Z, Could Cut a Plea Deal by Testifying at "El Chapo's " Trial

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Zeta and the Chicago Tribune

By: jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Top cartel figure who is likely key witness against "'El Chapo'' quietly pleads guilty in Chicago:

Days before testimony begins in notorious Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s blockbuster trial in New York, one of the prosecution’s likely star witnesses stood in a nearly empty courtroom in Chicago and quietly admitted he helped oversee Guzman’s vast narcotics empire.

The brief hearing before U.S. District Chief Judge Ruben Castillo marked the first time that Vicente Zambada-Niebla, who is the son of the current boss of the cartel, has appeared in public in a U.S. courtroom since it was announced four years ago he was cooperating against "El Chapo".

Dressed in a blue sweatshirt, black jeans and sneakers, and sporting a scruffy beard, Zambada-Niebla bounced slightly on the balls of his feet as he pleaded guilty to sweeping narcotics charges that were brought in 2003 in federal court in Washington and transferred to Chicago earlier this year.

In his 19-page plea agreement with prosecutors, Zambada-Niebla, 43, who was at one time regarded as a top "El Chapo" protege, admitted he trafficked thousands of pounds of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. using speedboats, submarines and jumbo jets, records show. Known as “Mayito” after his father, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, he also acknowledged the cartel used “military-caliber” weapons to enforce their shipments as well as “violence and threats of violence” to rivals, informants and law enforcement.

During the thirty -minute hearing Thursday,  Zambada-Niebla  listened closely through a Spanish interpreter and responded to the judge’s questions with an enthusiastic “Si, su senoria,” or “Yes, your honor.” He shook his lawyer’s hand after court before being led out by deputy marshals.

The charges in Washington largely mirrored an indictment brought in Chicago against Zambada-Niebla and more than a dozen members of Sinaloa’s leadership, including Guzman. Zambada-Niebla secretly pleaded guilty in that case in 2013 and agreed to cooperate — a bombshell development in the decade long effort to get to "El Chapo" that was kept under wraps for more than a year.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Zambada-Niebla faces life in prison, but prosecutors reiterated Thursday that if he continues to "provide full and truthful cooperation," including possible testimony in “any criminal proceeding,” they will seek an unspecified break in his sentence.

As part of the two plea deals he has cut with the government, Zambada-Neibla has agreed not to fight an unprecedented order to forfeit $1.37 billion in ill-gotten proceeds from the cartel.

Castillo said he would set a sentencing date for Zambada-Niebla after his cooperation was complete, though the trial of Guzman was not specifically mentioned.

Once Zambada-Niebla is done serving his prison time, the U.S. government will take “all appropriate measures” to protect him and his family from reprisal, including allowing them to remain in the country permanently, according to the plea agreement.

Zambada-Niebla was arrested in 2009 in Mexico City and extradited to Chicago a year later.

After his arrival, authorities at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop refused to let him exercise on the rooftop, citing concern over an assassination attempt or escape by helicopter. Zambada-Niebla was later moved to a Michigan facility, and for years he appeared in court in Chicago only via teleconference.

After his guilty plea in the Chicago case, he was secretly moved to an undisclosed location, authorities said. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons website has no record of his whereabouts.

Security was tight Thursday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where deputy marshals set up a metal detector outside Castillo’s 25th-floor courtroom. Although the hearing was public, it was not posted on the judge’s regular schedule or reflected in the public court docket.

At the center of the charges against Zambada-Niebla are Pedro and Margarito Flores, twin brothers from Chicago's West Side who had risen in the ranks of Guzman's organization before providing key cooperation. In October 2008, Margarito Flores attended a meeting with Zambada-Niebla, "El Chapo" Guzman and other cartel leaders at a mountaintop compound in Mexico, the charges allege.

Flores told authorities that Guzman discussed a plot to attack a U.S. or Mexican government or media building in retaliation for the recent arrest of an associate. In that same conversation, Zambada-Niebla turned to Flores and asked him to find somebody who could give him "big, powerful weapons" to help carry out the attack, according to court records.

"We don't want Middle Eastern or Asian guns, we want big U.S. guns or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades)," said Zambada-Niebla, according to Flores' account of the talk in court records. "We don't need one, we need a lot of them."

Court records show Flores later secretly recorded a telephone conversation with Zambada-Niebla, telling him the weapons were going to cost twice as much as they'd thought.

"That's fine, just let me know," Zambada-Niebla replied, according to court records.

The Flores twins were each sentenced by Castillo to 14 years in prison in 2015. At least one of the brothers is also expected to give key testimony at Guzman’s trial in New York.

Zambada-Niebla's father, meanwhile, remains a fugitive, believed to be hiding in the Mexican mountains where the family got its start as ranchers.

His younger brother, Serafin Zambada, was sentenced in March to 5 1/2 years in federal prison in a separate drug trafficking conspiracy case brought in San Diego, records show.

ZETA's Version:
By: Carlos Alvarez

Vicente Zambada Niebla, alias Vicentillo, son of the alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael, "El Mayo" Zambada García, in May, pleaded guilty in the Federal Court of the Northern District of Illinois to having collaborated in the drug trafficking operations of Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera , "El Chapo" Guzman.

According to the Chicago Tribune newspaper, Zambada Niebla admitted before the District Judge Rubén Castillo several charges of drug trafficking that he had committed since 2003. His statement includes having trafficked tons of cocaine and heroin to the United States using all types of vehicles, from submarines to jumbo airplanes. 

The document with which the Mayo's son admitted his guilt also recognizes the use of military-type weapons in trafficking operations and to exert violence and threats against rival groups, informants or police, the newspaper said.

Vicentillo pleaded guilty at the start of the trial against Guzmán Loera in New York, and at which he, Zambada Niebla is also expected to testify , as he was cooperating with the US authorities after pleading guilty in 2013 when he signed the agreement with the Prosecutor's Office, however , it had not been formalized in a hearing before the Court.

According to the Chicago Tribune, although the sentence facing the son of Mayo Zambada is life imprisonment, Zambada Niebla could negotiate favorable terms in his sentence if he continues to give valuable information or even his testimony. In addition, Judge Castillo will set a date to sentence him when it is determined that he has delivered all the information sought by the prosecutors.

Vicentillo, 43 years old and born in Culiacán, was arrested on March 18, 2009 in Mexico City, after holding a meeting with agents of the Drug Control Administration , ie the DEA,  at the Sheraton Hotel Paseo de la Reforma, located next to the US Embassy in Mexico.

Zambada Niebla was extradited to the United States in February 2010, and transferred to a maximum security prison in Michigan, accused of being a senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel, conspiring to possess and traffic drugs from Central and South America, as well as obtaining weapons to attack public offices.