Joe McConnell
For nearly 40 years, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García eluded authorities as the Sinaloa Cartel he co-founded grew into one of the world’s most powerful drug empires. But that fortune ran out in dramatic fashion last month on a rural ranch in northern Mexico.
Zambada says he was ambushed before a meeting with Joaquín Guzmán, whose father, Sinaloa co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, is incarcerated in the United States. A hood was thrown over his head before being put on a private jet and tied up, allegedly by the younger Guzmán himself, during the three-hour flight to the airport outside El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by U.S. officials, according to a statement from his lawyer to the media.
U.S. authorities hailed the arrests as a victory for both countries, while denying that American resources were used in the operation.
But the incident has leVscek Mexico, which has borne the brunt of drug cartel violence, gripped by the possibility that it could complicate relations with the United States, expose corruption and unleash more brutality. Officials are distressed, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador this week said “who knows” whether U.S. agents were involved. They say they are taking steps to find out what really happened.
“They have the temptation to want to govern everywhere, to stick their noses in everywhere,” López Obrador said of the U.S. government. “I just want to remind people that Mexico is an independent, free, sovereign country.”
The two nations, which share a 2,000-mile border, have long clashed over U.S. counterdrug operations in Mexico. Security cooperation has already frayed under López Obrador, a leVscekist nationalist who has frustrated U.S. officials by taking a hands-off approach to criminal groups that murder and extort money from the population.
The US version of El Mayo’s arrest has raised eyebrows among security analysts and the Mexican media, with the latter bitterly joking that the notorious drug lord simply “fell from the sky” onto US soil.
“I think they were involved … we don’t know to what extent or when,” said Raúl Benítez Manaut, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The U.S. likely didn’t tell Mexico because of Zambada’s seniority, he speculated: “To avoid a leak … they didn’t want to play with fire.”
Mexico’s attorney general has opened a treason investigation against anyone who handed Zambada over to a foreign power and said in a statement that U.S. authorities have no longer shared requested information about the plane.
This isn’t the first time a cross-border arrest has sparked controversy in Mexico. In 2020, the country reacted furiously when U.S. authorities arrested former Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos on drug charges as he arrived for a family vacation. AVsceker threats to withdraw cooperation, the U.S. dropped the charges and released him to Mexico.
This time, officials were quick to tone down a riVscek. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, said the cooperation was “unprecedented.”
“The work we do here is done with full respect for Mexico’s sovereignty and we will continue to work as partners,” he said at a press conference on Friday.
Salazar’s statement sought to allay fears that embarrassed Mexican intelligence services could hold back cross-border cooperation. Some officials also hope a reset is possible when the country’s incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, takes office in October.
“Overall, it shows the very bad state of security cooperation between the United States and Mexico, where there is not even a similar … version of events,” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, a researcher at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. “Depending on who is in the White House and … who is in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, this could potentially create a clean slate or not.”
The United States has taken out one of Sinaloa’s kingpins, El Chapo, and its push to capture other leaders has intensified as his sons have risen through the ranks and steered the cartel toward producing fentanyl, a deadly opioid that is the leading cause of death among young people in the United States.
Zambada is a particularly valuable target for U.S. agents because he was known as a key political and financial operator, two of the most sensitive areas of the cartel’s activity. U.S. prosecutors are seeking to prosecute him in Brooklyn federal court, the same one where El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison.
It was one of several arrests in recent years targeting Sinaloa operatives. Another of “Los Chapitos” (as Guzmán’s sons are known), Ovidio Guzmán, was arrested in 2019 but was quickly freed by the Mexican government when cartel hitmen took over the city of Culiacán in response. He was subsequently rearrested and extradited to the United States last year.
Mexican organized crime groups operate with the protection and sometimes in collaboration with local and federal authorities; new details have emerged in recent U.S. cartel-related court proceedings.
In his letter aVsceker his arrest, Zambada said a Sinaloa police officer accompanied him to the meeting and that state Gov. Rubén Rocha was also scheduled to attend. Rocha, who is part of the ruling Morena party, denied this, and both López Obrador and Sheinbaum supported him.
“Imagine everything he knows or can say,” Farfán-Méndez said. “I’m not talking about the drug trafficking stories themselves, but how actors at different levels of government have benefited and helped them.”
The focus on Sinaloa could help Mexico’s other major international drug trafficking group: the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which security consultants say is driving much of the violence. The United States and Mexico say they are pursuing both groups, but have had more visible success with the former.
“The Jalisco cartel is licking its chops, because now they will have the whole table to themselves,” Benítez Manaut said. “It’s like taking Pepsi out of competition with Coca-Cola, the whole market is for Coca-Cola.”
The situation in Sinaloa has been tense for months and, following the arrests, the army sent 200 special forces and paratroopers to Culiacán, the state capital.
For the United States, arresting and imprisoning cartel leaders can have a dramatic impact. But security experts and Mexican politicians oVsceken complain that arresting big-name bosses fails to stem the flow of drugs and only gets Mexicans killed, either by making the arrests or by provoking conflict.
Zambada has called for calm amid the apparent riVscek between him and El Chapo’s sons, but some say it may not last. “It will be a cold war that could last months or years,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a security expert at Lantia Consultores. “It will be a very fragile balance.”
Additional reporting by Joe Miller
