Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, a co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Texas on Thursday after being lured onto a U.S.-bound plane by the son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and news reports.
Joaquín Guzmán López, El Chapo’s son, made Zambada García believe he was stepping onto a private plane to look at some real estate, law enforcement officials told The New York Times.
Both Guzmán López and Zambada García turned themselves in to authorities upon arrival in El Paso, Texas, a Mexican federal official told The Associated Press.
“The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
El Mayo is the co-founder of the cartel. Garland said the duo joins a “growing list” of Sinaloa leaders the DOJ is “holding accountable in the United States,” including El Chapo, one of his other sons, Ovidio Guzmán López, and the cartel’s alleged lead sicario, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, known as “El Nini.”
Both men arrested Thursday are facing multiple charges in the U.S. for leading the cartel’s criminal operations, including its fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.
“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 associated responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” Garland said.
The DOJ was offering a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of Zambada García, who has been evading law enforcement for decades, the AP said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Zambada García and Guzmán López oversaw the trafficking of “tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States.”
Zambada García is one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico and was considered the cartel’s strategist, as well as its most politically connected leader, with a monthly budget for bribes of up to $1 million, according to The New York Times. He has been charged in a number of U.S. cases, including in February, when he was charged with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl.
In 2010, he spoke with a Mexican magazine and said he would rather die by suicide than go to prison, and he lived in constant fear of being arrested. Zambada García’s son was arrested and pleaded guilty in San Diego in 2021, the AP reported.
Guzmán López and his brother, who has already been arrested, were believed to led a more flamboyant operation than Zambada García, called the “Chapitos” or little Chapos.
Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, told the AP that the arrests are important but unlikely to have an impact on drugs coming to the U.S., because Guzmán López was the least influential of 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.”
El Chapo was sentenced to life in U.S. prison in 2019. Last December, a court rejected his appeal of the sentence.
The Associated Press contributed.