Miguel Ángel Valdez Ruiz, nicknamed “El Flaco” and linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, appeared in court in the United States, where he is accused of international conspiracy to traffic cocaine from South America to the US.
Valdez Ruiz, originally from Culiacán, Sinaloa, is identified as Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s liaison with a drug lord in Ecuador. It should be noted that “El Flaco” was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2022.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and another hearing is scheduled for February 20. If found guilty, he could receive a sentence of life imprisonment and a $10 million fine.
On February 17, the Southern District of California announced the arrest of Flaco, a man who had been indicted since 2019. In 2022, he was accused of materially contributing to the criminal activities of major Mexican organized crime groups with whom he trafficked cocaine.
Authorities identify him as an intermediary between “the major Ecuadorian drug trafficker Wilder Emilio Sánchez Farfán [a man known as El Gato] and Ismael Zambada García, alias El Mayo.”
