Career
El Vicentillo, is a drug trafficker of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel. He was arrested in Mexico City on 19 March 2009 and extradited to the United States in February 2010 to stand trial on narco-trafficking-related charges. Zambada is charged with trafficking more than a billion dollars in cocaine and heroin.
However, Zambada claims that he is covered by an immunity deal between Mexico and the United States., and that, because Sinaloa Cartel leaders provided federal agents with information about rival drug gangs, he should go free.
As revealed in a 2013 plea bargain deal which was made public by a United States. District Court in 2014, Zambada admitted coordinating smuggling tons of cocaine and heroin with "El Chapo" Joaquín Guzmán Loera and agreed to forfeit assets of $1.37 billion to the United States government. The plea bargain resulted in a fine of $4 million and 10 years in prison.
He is considered a top potential witness against "El Chapo."
Zambada’s lawyers declared that he could not be prosecuted by the United States, because, they claimed, he had been secretly working as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, even as he smuggled tons of cocaine across the border. In fact, according to his counsel, Zambada had been assured by his contacts at the Doctorate.E.A. that, in exchange for providing them with intelligence about the drug trade in Mexico, he would be guaranteed immunity against prosecution for his own role in the business.
Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla is the son of Ismael Zambada Garcia (alias, “El Mayo”), one of the top leaders of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization.
He is also the brother of Midiam Patricia Zambada who are also in the Sinaloa Cartel narco business.