Son of “El Chapo,” “El Mayo” Zambada, the legendary head of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, was detained in the United States.
El Mayo Zambada, a Mexican drug boss, was detained in Texas, according to officials.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, U.S. officials in Texas have taken into custody Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a legendary commander of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, and Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of another notorious cartel leader.
The son of another notorious cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán López, and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a legendary leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, were taken into custody by American officials on Thursday in Texas, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Zambada, who co-led Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s formidable Sinaloa cartel for many years, was renowned for managing the group’s covert smuggling activities.
A reward of up to $15 million had been offered by the US government for information that would lead to his capture.
Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that Zambada and Guzmán López are being prosecuted on several counts “for leading the cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.”
Zambada’s arrest comes after several significant arrests of other members of the Sinaloa cartel, including two of Guzmán’s sons. El Chapo Guzmán’s son Guzmán López was also a Guzman.
The little Chapos, or “Chapitos,” are a group of the cartel that has been recognized as one of the biggest exporters of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl to the U.S. market. Guzman’s sons have been leading this faction in recent years. In 2019, “El Chapo” Guzmán received a life sentence in the United States of America.
Compared to Zambada, they were thought to be more showy and violent. Authorities in Mexico detained their chief of security in November.
Ovidio Guzmán López was detained and extradited to the United States last year. In September, he entered a not guilty plea to cocaine trafficking charges in Chicago.
Zambada was accused of planning to produce and distribute fentanyl in the Eastern District of New York in February. He is still the head of the Sinaloa cartel, which is considered to be “one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world,” according to the prosecution.
In a 2021 plea deal, a Zambada family member admitted to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel in a U.S. federal court located in San Diego.
In a plea deal, Ismael Zambada Imperial acknowledged that he played a key role in organizing the trafficking enterprise, which involved bringing tons of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana into the United States from Mexico.
One of the Sinaloa cartel’s most enduring capos in Mexico, Zambada was regarded as its strategist and was more involved in day-to-day operations than his more conspicuous and well-known boss, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is currently serving a life sentence in the United States.
Zambada was one of the most potent drug traffickers in the world thanks to his connections to Colombian cocaine sources and his network of cells spread throughout the United States. According to a U.S. Justice Department, he had been one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s leaders since the 1970s. The cartel’s main source of income is the selling of drugs in the country.
In a period of younger kingpins famed for their colorful lifestyles of club hopping and brutal techniques of dismembering, skinning, and even executing his opponents, Zambada was an archaic capo. Zambada was noted for focusing on the commercial side of trafficking rather than resorting to graphic cartel violence that would attract attention, even though he battled anyone who dared to defy him.
He admitted that he would consider suicide rather than be apprehended and that he lived in continual terror of being imprisoned in an interview published in April 2010 in the Mexican magazine Proceso.
“I’m afraid of going to jail,” Zambada uttered. “Yes, I would kill myself, I would like to think.”
For a kingpin who was known for keeping his head down, the interview was unexpected, but he gave precise instructions on the location and time of the meeting, and the story provided no indication of his whereabouts.
Zambada is said to have gained the allegiance of the people in his native state of Sinaloa and the neighboring state of Durango by being a generous man who supported local farmers and gave money and beer to the people in El Alamo, where he was born.
Zambada is thought to have begun his career in drug trafficking as an enforcer in the 1970s, despite the fact that nothing is known about his early years.
He was a key figure in the Juarez cartel during the early 1990s, moving large amounts of cocaine and marijuana.
Zambada began to win the confidence of drug traffickers in Colombia, creating allies that would ultimately help him prevail in the world of cartels and its constantly shifting coalitions. He eventually gained enough strength to split from the Juarez cartel, but he was still able to maintain close relationships with the group and prevent a turf war. Additionally, he and “El Chapo” Guzman formed a collaboration that would propel him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.
__
