Two notorious leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel — also known as the Blood Alliance — turned themselves into US authorities on Thursday after decades on the run from international police.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a long-time Sinaloa leader, and Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested after arriving in the US on a private plane and presenting themselves to federal police in the west Texas city of El Paso.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said the pair allegedly oversaw the trafficking of “tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence”.
According to a statement provided by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, the men are facing multiple charges for leading the cartel’s criminal operations, including its fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.
Garland promised that prosecutors would “not rest” until “every single cartel leader, member, and associate” responsible for distributing fentanyl was brought to justice.
Mexican authorities didn’t immediately comment on the arrests.
Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world, known for his meteoric rise within the cartel and running its smuggling operations while keeping arelatively low profile.
For years, the US government offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture.
In an April 2010 interview, with the Mexican magazine Proceso, the cartel leader acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide if captured.
“I’m terrified of being incarcerated,” Zambada said, according to the article. “I’d like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.”
The fentanyl factor
A recent report by the US’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), cites the Sinaloa Cartel as one of two of main cartels responsible for shipping addictive synthetic drugs into the US in large quantities.
“The Sinaloa Cartel wields power through fear, threats, and violence, killing local police, journalists, [and] members of other criminal groups who encroach on their territory without authorisation,” the document states.
“The Sinaloa Cartel has built a mutually profitable partnership with China-based precursor chemical suppliers to obtain the ingredients they need to make synthetic drugs”.
The DEA celebrated news of the men’s arrest, with administrator Anne Milgram publishing a statement saying it “strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast”.
“El Mayo is one of DEA’s most wanted fugitives and he is in custody tonight and will soon face justice in a US court of law,” she said.
“Joaquín Guzmán López, another alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the son of ‘El Chapo’, was also arrested today. His arrest is another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel.”
López is regarded as the least influential of the four sons belonging to the ‘Chapitos’ — the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel identified as the main fentanyl importer into the US.
Roughly 74,000 people in the US died from synthetic opioid overdoses in 2023, according to the National Centre for Health Statistics.
Stemming the flow
According to Mike Vigil, former DEA head of international operations, the arrests are important, but are unlikely to impact the flow of drugs to the US.
“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.”
Source Agencies
