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Undated images of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia provided by the Mexican Attorney General’s office in Mexico City on 1 August 2003. Two top leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, including its co-founder Ismael Zambada Garcia, were arrested on 25 July 2024 in Texas, the US Department of Justice said. (Handout / Mexican Attorney General press office / AFP)
Ismael “Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the
Sinaloa Cartel and one of Mexico’s most-wanted drug traffickers, was arrested
in El Paso, Texas. The United States had offered a $15 million reward for
information leading to Zambada’s capture. His arrest came
along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of “El Chapo,” another notorious
cartel leader.Ismael “Mayo” Zambada, the Sinaloa Cartel
co-founder arrested Thursday in the United States, is one of Mexico’s
most-wanted drug traffickers who evaded justice for decades.
Before his startling capture in El Paso, Texas, the
76-year-old had never been to jail.
Despite his efforts to keep a low profile, the elusive boss
was one of the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s top targets.
The United States had offered a $15 million reward for
information leading to Zambada’s arrest, accusing him of trafficking cocaine,
heroin, methamphetamines and fentanyl.
The bounty exceeded the $10 million offered for Nemesio
“El Mencho” Oseguera, head of the rival Jalisco New Generation
Cartel.
Zambada was detained Thursday along with Joaquin Guzman
Lopez, a son of the Sinaloa Cartel’s founder Joaquin “El Chapo”
Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.
Unlike Zambada, El Chapo was arrested three times before
being extradited to the United States.
Zambada, who was born in the Sinaloa state capital Culiacan,
was the long-time leader of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, according to US
authorities.
He was “unique in that he has spent his entire adult
life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in
jail,” the US State Department said in 2021.
After El Chapo’s arrest and extradition, Zambada became the
“unquestioned senior leader of the Sinaloa Cartel,” it added.
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A former farmer, Zambada started working with the Juarez
Cartel in the 1980s and 1990s.
After the death of that cartel’s head Amado Carrillo
Fuentes, he decided to create his own organisation, according to the InSight
Crime think tank.
In recent years, Zambada had been weakened by the arrests of
his brother, two sons and a nephew, it noted.
Two of them even served as witnesses in El Chapo’s trial in
New York.
El Chapo’s lawyers argued that the real leader of the cartel
was Zambada.
Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman alleged that Zambada paid former
Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto a bribe of $100 million.
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In 2017, Zambada survived an attack allegedly carried out by
another Sinaloa Cartel leader.
In 2010, the veteran drug lord gave a brief interview to the
Mexican magazine Proceso, which revealed that he had begun committing crimes at
the age of 16.
Zambada said that he had come close to being captured by the
Mexican army on several occasions.
But it was not until Thursday that he was finally taken into
US custody in circumstances that were not immediately clear.
Zambada is, according to InSight Crime, “one of the
most storied drug traffickers in Mexican history,” known for maintaining a
low profile and focusing on business over violence.
“In addition, he is one of the few old-guard bosses who
has managed to evade justice throughout his criminal career,” the think
tank said before his detention.
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