Two senior figures from the predominant Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, have been apprehended by US law enforcement officials. Being influential Mexican drug barons, they supervise colossal international cocaine and fentanyl operations which transfer illegal substances to the United States, Europe and beyond. They were a part of the leadership in the Sinaloa cartel, which ranks amongst the two largest drug trafficking syndicates in Mexico and stands as one of the most complicated and perilous criminal entities globally. Both men were taken into custody in El Paso, Texas.
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland described fentanyl as the most lethal drug risk the nation has ever encountered, promising that the Justice Department would not cease their operations until every cartel leader, member and associate involved in polluting our communities has been apprehended.
Zambada García, 76 years old and known as “El Mayo”, has been a target of the US government for an extended period as a founding member of the Sinaloa cartel. He features in numerous federal indictments dating back over 20 years.
A son of infamous criminal leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also referred to as El Chapo, Guzmán López allegedly stepped into a leadership position within the cartel, alongside his three brothers, following his father’s extradition to the United States in 2017. His sibling Ovidio Guzmán López was taken into custody in Mexico and extradited for trial in Chicago in September.
Joaquín Guzmán López is expected to face charges in the US District Court in Chicago in the following days. The location where Zambada García is to be prosecuted remains uncertain.
According to US authorities, contrasting his key collaborator, El Chapo, who was extradited to the United States, tried in Brooklyn federal court in 2019, and received a life imprisonment sentence on drug conspiracy accusations, Zambada García has not experienced incarceration.
The detainment represents a triumph for various US federal agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Homeland Security Investigations, which have been relentlessly pursuing the senior hierarchy of the Sinaloa cartel. The successful prosecution of El Chapo marked major progress in the mission, yet there remained frustration among US officials due to their unfulfilled attempts to indict Zambada García.
Desperate attempts had been made to arrest Zambada García, with an extensive wealth of information from wiretaps over the years and near capture immediately preceeding El Chapo’s arrest. El Chapo, however, was notorious for media engagement, gaining somewhat of an international notoriety, most conspicuously when Sean Penn profiled him in an interview for Rolling Stone magazine.
Contrarily, it has always been the tendency of Zamabada García to maintain a somewhat lower profile, echoing a more traditional criminal persona. He is less extravagant, opting for a modest lifestyle in his El Alamo based residence located in Sinaloa. Behind closed doors, Zambada García, recognised for his realistic approach, has been in dialogue with US federal representatives for a minimum of three years, talking over the conditions of his potential surrender as per the information from five individuals in the know.
Durin El Chapo’s trial, Zambada García was on the receiving end of a bitter, public treachery when his offspring delivered incriminating evidence against him for the prosecution. Vicente Zambada Niebla provided a compelling, meticulous narrative of the far-reaching criminal operation of the cartel, having been arrested previously by Mexican law enforcement and extradited to the United States in 2010.
At the proceedings, Zambada Niebla unveiled an impressive understanding of the operational complexity of the cartel, detailing his father’s role in moving a large quantity of goods through an expansive smuggling and money laundering network. It was claimed that his father allocated up to $1 million monthly for bribes, which included payments to a high-ranking military individual and a soldier who once protected former Mexican president, Vicente Fox, according to The New York Times.