BBC“They search for him all over the place and the person isn’t even hidden” go the lyrics to a music by Los Tucanes de Tijuana, in honour of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The well-known 76-year-old drug trafficker, one of many three founders and, till now, chief of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on Thursday by the US authorities.
Additionally in custody is Joaquín Guzmán López, the 38-year-old son of the cartel’s different founder, the notorious Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – who has been serving a life sentence within the US since 2019.
Citing Mexican and US officers, the Wall Street Journal reports that Zambada was tricked into boarding the airplane by a high-ranking Sinaloa member following a months-long operation by Homeland Safety Investigations and the FBI.
It’s an unprecedented blow to 2 of essentially the most wished drug traffickers on the earth, accused of extortion, corruption, drug trafficking and cash laundering.
El Mayo, also referred to as “The Man with the Hat”, has attracted admiration and notoriety over 5 a long time within the enterprise.
Los Tucanes’ music, which has 10 million views on YouTube, continues: “The legislation desires to cease him, the enemies need to kill him, however nobody has succeeded – the satan seems to them.”
From trafficker to chief
Zambada’s rise from frequent trafficker to “capo de capos” (boss of bosses), as he’s usually referred to as, is a narrative of pragmatism, crafty and corruption.
After a brief stint as a furnishings deliveryman on the streets of Culiacán, a metropolis in northwestern Mexico, Zambada started his underworld profession as a trafficker within the Nineteen Seventies.
He first labored for the Guadalajara cartel, a pioneer within the business, which traded opium, marijuana and, ultimately, cocaine.
He then labored within the Juárez cartel, first as a center supervisor after which as a pacesetter, turning into more and more near Amado Carrillo, the so-called “Lord of the Skies”.
From there, it’s believed that he created a community of contacts in Colombia, the nation the place he went on to make nice associates and cocaine-producing companions.
As different bosses died or fell, Zambada turned extra highly effective. He hardly ever had an issue with betraying an ally.
But when something differentiates him from different drug lords, it’s that he all the time saved a low profile. There are nearly no photos of him.
It has been reported that he has had surgical procedures to vary his look. That he’s 1.8m tall. That he’s large and robust. That he has many wives and youngsters. However little extra.
$1m bribe finances
One among El Mayo’s sons, Vicente Zambada Niebla, was detained by the Mexican authorities in 2009. His jail diary was later launched.
In it, and within the testimony he gave to the US authorities, Zambada junior stated that his father budgeted $1m monthly for bribes, and that his community of complicity included banks and governments.
El Mayo has additionally reportedly been one of many drug traffickers most involved about producing a bond along with his group.
He has been a patron of El Álamo, his native ranchería, and different cities within the Sinaloa area, financing their works and celebrations.
One among El Chapo’s heirs
Getty PicturesLittle is understood about Joaquín Guzmán López, who was detained alongside Zambada on Thursday.
The 38-year-old man, referred to as El Güero, is the son of El Chapo and Griselda López Pérez, the drug trafficker’s second spouse.
El Chapo had 10 kids with three ladies: Alejandrina Salazar, Griselda López and Emma Coronel.
Joaquín is a member of Los Chapitos, a cell made up of El Chapo’s kids, together with Joaquín’s brother Ovidio, who was extradited to america in September final yr, following his arrest in Mexico in January 2023.
Some take into account Joaquín’s function within the prison organisation secondary to Ovidio’s. Nevertheless, the US State Division states that Joaquín carried out “high-level command and management capabilities” in each the Los Chapitos group and the Sinaloa cartel.
US authorities preserve that after the demise of Chapo’s older son Edgar, Joaquín and Ovidio inherited a lot of the earnings from narcotics gross sales and started investing massive quantities of money in buying marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia.
In line with a former associates of El Chapo, Joaquín and Ovidio had been additionally concerned in serving to the drug lord escape from a most safety jail in Mexico in 2015 – his second jail escape after costs associated to homicide and drug trafficking in 1993.
US authorities additionally preserve that Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán López run not less than 11 laboratories that produce methamphetamine within the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
Joaquín was first indicted on federal drug trafficking costs in 2018 within the US.
