Prosecutors had recommended a 17-year sentence for Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the Sinaloa drug cartel’s logistics guru
A federal judge in Chicago issued a 15-year prison sentence Thursday to one of Mexico’s most powerful drug traffickers following his extraordinary assistance in the U.S. prosecution of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera and others.
Vicente Zambada-Niebla was the Sinaloa drug cartel’s logistics guru, coordinating trains, ships, submarines and even Boeing 747s as they moved cocaine and heroin from South America to Mexico for “El Chapo.” He supervised Pedro Flores and Margarito Flores, the twin brothers who brought up to 2,000 kilograms of cocaine a month into Chicago and other major U.S. cities.
He also apparently lost track of the number of times he passed along an order to have someone killed.
In issuing a sentence two years shorter than federal prosecutors had sought, U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo called the consequences of Zambada-Niebla’s actions “just tremendous” but also cited his extensive cooperation with the government.
He also, he said, considered the manner in which he was held — including in solitary confinement — and the fact that Zambada-Niebla had to wait 10 years to be sentenced.
“Now, all of a sudden in this country [cooperation with investigators] become something that is looked down upon. And frankly, I don’t understand it from my vantage point of 25 years on the bench,” Castillo said.
“As far as I’m concerned, you did not sell out El Chapo … you cooperated with the United States of America.”
Castillo also noted that “many in Washington want to build a wall when most of these drugs are coming in in a fashion where a wall will do nothing, nothing about,” Castillo said. “If there is a so-called drug war, we have lost it.”
Zambada-Niebla could have faced life in prison; federal prosecutors had sought 17 years in prison, recognizing the “unrivaled” cooperation he offered that led to charges against dozens of “high-level” targets and hundreds of their associates. They called him “one of the most well-known cooperating witnesses in the world.”
At the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Erika Csicsila described the help prosecutors received from Zambada-Niebla, adding that she expects it “will continue on after the sentencing hearing today.”
Zambada-Niebla’s attorney said he “struggled” with his decision to testify: “He did not want to testify. He was concerned about the consequences. … A lot of his friends and family members have been killed.”
The attorney asked for a sentence of 12 years.
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Zambada-Niebla, speaking through an interpreter, asked for forgiveness and acknowledged “some bad decisions … which I accepted, and I continue to accept, full responsibility for.”
He added: “Today I feel I can be a better father, a better husband — I feel I can be a better son, and most of all a better human being.”
Heavy security surrounded the Dirksen Federal Courthouse ahead of Zambada-Niebla’s sentencing Thursday morning. Drug dogs roamed the premises, and even courthouse employees were subject to security screening in the lobby — where guards kept big guns in plain sight. The feds have predicted Zambada-Niebla “would in all likelihood be killed” absent government protection.
Most notably, Zambada-Niebla testified earlier this year against “El Chapo” during the drug kingpin’s trial in Brooklyn. By doing so, Zambada-Niebla not only helped convict the most-wanted criminal in the world but also “clearly described the criminal culpability of his own father,” the fugitive Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a prosecutor wrote in a court filing.
Csicsila predicted Zambada-Niebla and his family “will live the rest of their lives in danger of being killed in retribution.” She also said the federal government plans to protect Zambada after his incarceration “and remains confident in its ability to do so.”
Zambada-Niebla’s father ran the white-collar side of the Sinaloa cartel, plowing drug money into real estate and other ventures. “El Chapo” was on the operational side — dressing like the ranchers of Sinaloa state and taking part in killings, authorities say.
But DEA agents and prosecutors who met Zambada-Niebla, now 44, say he came across as more of an aristocrat than Scarface. In the few photos of him that have been made public, he’s seen dressed in a stylish dark suit during his arrest in Mexico.
He was extradited to the United States in 2010 after being charged in Chicago in a far-reaching federal indictment against “El Chapo” and his Sinaloa associates.
Testifying against “El Chapo” this year, Zambada-Niebla denied personally killing anyone, but he was asked, “have you ever relayed any orders from someone to die?” Zambada-Niebla replied, “yes. Several times.” Then, he was asked how many times.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But there were several times.”
Thousands of people have died in Mexico as a result of the drug wars the Sinaloa cartel and its rivals have waged for years. They’ve been marked by decapitations and public hangings, as well as shootings and bombings.
The Flores brothers, who worked for Zambada-Niebla, are believed to have been the biggest drug dealers in Chicago history. Like Zambada-Niebla, they ultimately agreed to cooperate with the U.S. government against the Sinaloa cartel.
The twins pleaded guilty to drug charges in 2015 and were given relatively light prison sentences of 14 years each.
When they were sentenced, the judge told them that, even after they do their time and are released into the government’s witness-protection program, they’ll always have to worry about being hunted down by cartel hit men.
Csicsila drew comparisons between Zambada-Niebla and the Flores brothers in a court memo this month. While the Flores brothers tried to hide some drugs while working with the government, she said Zambada-Niebla has been a “model” cooperator.
But she argued Zambada-Niebla should serve more time than the Flores brothers because he “admitted to having ordered acts of violence that were carried out against rival cartel members.”
“That fact cannot be ignored,” Csicsila wrote.
