The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that it will not seek the death penalty in the cases of brothers Miguel Angel and Omar Treviño Morales, the co-founders of Mexico’s bloody Los Zetas cartel.
The acting chief of the DOJ’s Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section, Sophia Suarez, sent a letter to the judge in charge of the case, Trevor McFadden, with the decision made by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office.
“Dear Judge McFadden: The government respectfully submits this letter to inform the court and the defense that the attorney general has authorized and directed this office not to pursue the death penalty against defendant Miguel Treviño Morales and defendant Omar Treviño Morales,” the document reads.
Miguel Angel and Omar Treviño Morales, alias Z-40 and Z-42, who arrived on U.S. soil after being handed over by the Mexican administration of Claudia Sheinbaum in February, are charged with cocaine and marijuana trafficking, organized crime, money laundering and firearms possession.
His next hearing is scheduled for October 14 in a federal court in the District of Columbia, where the capital Washington D.C. is located.
The US accuses them of allegedly running a violent criminal network that, between 2000 and 2011, transported large quantities of narcotics to US cities along the border with northeastern Mexico, with Texas as the main point of entry.
The dangerousness of Los Zetas
Drug trafficking and security experts agree that Los Zetas is one of Mexico’s most brutal and violent cartels, with a history of mass murder, attacks on civilians and public displays of terror to intimidate the communities under its control.
Now, the legal fate of the Treviño Morales brothers, whose organization operated as the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel before going solo, continues on a parallel path to that of other Mexican drug traffickers such as Rafael Caro Quintero.
The man known as Narco de Narcos also arrived as part of the group of 29 drug criminals that the US requested and Sheinbaum sent in February.
Caro Quintero and the Treviño Morales were the most high-profile in this transfer, and the U.S. Department of Justice has already announced that neither will ultimately face the death penalty.
Nor will capital punishment be applied in the case of three other figures crucial to Mexican drug trafficking and now in U.S. custody: Ovidio Guzmán – El Chapo’s son and alias Ratón -, Joaquín Guzmán López – also El Chapo’s son and nicknamed “El Güero” – and Ismael El Mayo Zambada, the former mastermind of the Sinaloa Cartel, reported Agencia EFE.
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