Image source, Reuters/DEA
- author, Max Mazza and Will Grant, Mexico correspondents
- role, BBC News
One of the world’s most powerful drug lords, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, has been arrested by U.S. federal agents in El Paso, Texas.
Zambada, 76, founded the crime organization with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is now imprisoned in the United States.
Arrested along with Zambada on Thursday was Guzman’s son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, according to the Department of Justice.
Zambada was indicted by U.S. prosecutors in February on charges of conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, a drug more powerful than heroin that has been blamed for America’s opioid crisis.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Mexican and U.S. officials, reported that after a months-long investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI, Zambada was tricked into boarding the plane by a senior Sinaloa official.
Zambada was supposed to be touring a secret airfield in southern Mexico but was instead flown to a civilian airport outside El Paso, Texas.
When the plane landed, Lopez was arrested by federal agents along with Zambada.
According to the New York Times, authorities said Zambada was “lured” onto the private jet by Lopez under “false pretenses.”
Mexico’s Security Minister Rosa Rodriguez said the Mexican government was aware of the US detention of both Zambada and Lopez but that Mexican authorities were not involved in the operation to capture them.
Mexico’s president called on the United States to provide full transparency about the seizure.
“The U.S. government must submit a full report, not just a general statement. There must be transparency,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his regular morning press conference on Friday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a written statement Thursday evening that the two men led “one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.”
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our nation has ever faced, and the Department of Justice will not rest until all cartel leaders, members and associates who poison our communities are held accountable,” he added.
American prosecutors say the Sinaloa Cartel is the largest drug supplier to the United States.
U.S. officials have previously said fentanyl is the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had offered a reward of up to $15 million (£12 million) for Zambada’s arrest.
“The truth is [Guzman] “Mayo Zambada had no control over anything,” Guzman’s lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman told the jury. “Mayo Zambada was in control,” he argued.
According to the State Department, Zambada owns several legitimate businesses in Mexico, including “a major milk company, a bus line and a hotel,” as well as real estate assets.
In addition to the fentanyl charges, he also faces a wide range of charges in the United States, including drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, money laundering and organized crime.
At his initial appearance in federal court, Zambada pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His lawyer, Frank Perez, said he had no comment other than to say “he did not turn himself in voluntarily; he was taken against his will.”
Records show Zambada is scheduled to appear in El Paso Magistrate Court next Wednesday to be arraigned.
In May, Zambada’s nephew, Eliseo Imperial Castro, known as “Cheyo Antrax,” was ambushed and killed in Mexico. He was also wanted by US authorities.
Zambada is probably the world’s biggest drug lord and the most influential in the Americas.
His arrest came as a shock in Mexico, as he had eluded authorities for decades.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that the Sinaloa Cartel “has been a pioneer in the manufacture of fentanyl and has been smuggling it into the United States for years, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans and devastating countless communities.”
FBI Director Chris Wray said the arrests were “an example of the FBI and our partners’ commitment to dismantling violent transnational criminal organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel.”
As more information emerges, Zambada’s arrest will undoubtedly be hailed by President Joe Biden’s administration as one of the most significant operations conducted by the DEA in years.
Zambada co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel after the collapse of the Guadalajara Cartel in the late 1980s.
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was the face of the organization and the more notorious of the two, but in reality many believed that El Mayo was the organization’s true leader.
He was ruthless but also innovative, forging and maintaining early ties with Colombian drug cartels that flooded the United States with cocaine and heroin.
And more recently, fentanyl.
His leadership of his criminal empire has been maintained despite changes in presidents in Mexico and the United States, multiple anti-drug campaigns by successive administrations and persistent efforts by other drug trafficking enemies to oust him.
This is no mean feat in the violent, dangerous and treacherous underworld in which he has operated as an unassailable boss for so many years.
But that remarkable resilience seems to have run out in El Paso, Texas, a city devastated by an influx of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, much of it smuggled by his organization.