Mexican drug kingpin Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada (L) and Joaquin Guzman Lopez (R), son of ‘El Chapo’ were arrested in Texas
Two of Mexico’s most notorious cartel leaders who make a combined $11 billion a year have been arrested by US authorities in Texas.
Mexican drug kingpin Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada and the son of his ex-partner, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, were apprehended on Thursday in El Paso, Texas, in a major coup for authorities that may also reshape the global criminal landscape.
Zambada is one of the most notorious traffickers in Mexico’s history and co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel with El Chapo, who was extradited to the United States in 2017 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.
Both Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of El Chapo, face multiple charges in the U.S. for funnelling huge quantities of drugs to U.S. streets, including fentanyl, which has surged to become the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
Ismael Zambada Garcia, a 70-year-old former poppy-field worker better known as ‘El Mayo,’ co-founded the notorious Sinaloa cartel along with El Chapo (Picture: U.S. State Department)
Zambada, who is believed to be in his 70s, and Guzman Lopez, who is in his 30s, were detained after landing in a private plane in the El Paso area.
The pair reportedly turned themselves into authorities after the US government offered a $20 million bounty on information which would lead to their capture, an official said on condition of anonymity.
Zambada and Guzman Lopez, who have eluded authorities for decades, oversaw the alleged trafficking of ‘tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence’, FBI director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will ‘face justice in the United States’.
In a statement, attorney general Merrick Garland said: ‘Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.’
Mexican authorities did not immediately comment on the arrests.
US officials have been seeking Zambada’s capture for years, and he has been charged in several US cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid.
Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, ‘one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world’.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez was one of El Chapo’s four sons who ran the cartel following his arrest
One worker at the Santa Teresa airport, near El Paso, on Thursday afternoon told Reuters that he saw a Beechcraft King Air land on the runway, where federal agents were already waiting.
‘Two individuals got off the plane… and were calmly taken into custody,’ said the man, who declined to share his name out of concern for his safety.
‘It seemed like a pretty calm, arranged thing,’ he added.
The two capos belong to two different generations of traffickers, with very different styles.
Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, is known for being a more ‘old-school’ narco, and was considered the cartel’s top strategist who was more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.
While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.
Guzman, by contrast, was known to be more violent and hot-headed than Zambada and garnered a reputation for extreme violence and flamboyance as he ascended the ranks of the cartel.
The pair were arrested at an airport in El Paso, Texas (Picture: DEA)
Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighbouring Durango through acts of philanthropy, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.
Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually, he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but he still managed to maintain strong ties with the gang and avoid a turf war.
He also developed a partnership with “El Chapo” Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Zambada’s detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of “El Chapo” Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez.
Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartelwas arrested in 2019 (Picture: AP)
In recent years, Guzman’s sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or ‘Chapitos’, that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the US market.
Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Zambada’s arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the US as Joaquin Guzman Lopez was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos.
‘This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘It’s not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him.’
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