On a July afternoon in 2024, a private jet carrying three men from Mexico touched down at a small airport a few miles west of El Paso. Federal agents were waiting on the tarmac to greet them, handcuffs at the ready.
The first to disembark was Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of the infamous Sinaloa cartel leader “El Chapo.” Pudgy and dark-haired with a stubbly beard, he had just turned 38 and was wanted by U.S. authorities for working with his three brothers — known collectively as Los Chapitos — to smuggle tons of fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine.
Behind him was his septuagenarian godfather, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime partner of El Chapo who co-founded the Sinaloa cartel and had a $15-million bounty on his head.
And then there was the pilot.
Although his passengers were among the world’s most notorious drug traffickers, the aviator who flew them across the border was almost a complete unknown — so much so that while the others were arrested immediately, he was allowed to walk free and return home to Mexico.
Since then, however, interviews and court documents reveal that he was a key member of the Chapitos organization — essentially the commander of the cartel’s air force. And he could soon play a role in bringing down other major cartel leaders.
The Times first identified the pilot in May as Mauro Alberto Núñez Ojeda, aka “Jando.” Now, information has emerged that paints a picture of him as a prolific smuggler, a dangerous henchman and a slippery figure who used a relative’s documents to mask his identity, allowing him to fly under the radar, literally and figuratively, for years.
The flight that brought Zambada and Guzmán López to the U.S. ultimately thrust him into the spotlight.
Guzmán López has admitted that he betrayed Zambada, the cartel’s elder statesman, by luring him to a meeting, ambushing him and forcing him onto the plane. By handing Zambada over to U.S. authorities while turning himself in, Guzmán López hoped to secure a deal that would allow him to avoid his father’s fate of serving life in a maximum-security prison.
Jando’s role in the abduction and the Sinaloa cartel was unclear until recent months.
According to U.S. court filings and sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, Jando, now 32, rose through the ranks of the Chapitos faction until he reported directly to Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, the ringleader of the cartel, who remains a fugitive in Mexico.
While he was no kingpin, one source said, Jando oozes charisma. There was a reason, they said, that he was trusted by El Chapo’s sons to execute some of the cartel’s most sensitive missions.
“He’s got like an aura,” the source said. “If he’d been born in the U.S. he’d be the CEO of a company or some wunderkind. It’s sort of unfortunate he was born in the milieu that he was. He’d be successful anywhere.”
The source said that when Jando was a teenager, he got his start as a low-level mule, hauling backpacks full of drugs on foot into the Arizona desert, then trekking back to Mexico, going undetected by the U.S. Border Patrol.
“He’s naturally smart and naturally likable, naturally resourceful, he was a standout drug courier,” the source said.
His cartel bosses sensed potential and sent him to flight school in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state. He earned his pilot’s license and began the dangerous work of landing on clandestine airstrips hidden deep in the Sierra Madre mountains.
According to a document filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, where he was charged with drug conspiracy, Jando’s time with the cartel stretched back to at least January 2014 and took him to Costa Rica, Ecuador and other parts of Latin America.
He also learned to fly helicopters and, according to the court document, was promoted to “overseeing the operation of a fleet of aircraft and personnel on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel, including mechanics, pilots, and maintenance workers servicing aircraft.”
The court document says he began working as “a secretary and armed security” for Óscar Noé Medina González, a top lieutenant in the Chapitos organization nicknamed “El Panu.” Reputed to have been the head of security for Guzmán Salazar, he was gunned down at a restaurant in Mexico City in December.
Eventually, according to the court filing that spells his nickname as “Jondo,” he took on more responsibilities and became one of the most trusted members of Guzmán Salazar’s inner circle.
Jando also continued his work as a pilot. He managed a fleet of aircraft, ranging from single-prop Cessnas and Pipers to larger planes such as the Beechcraft King Air, which was used during the kidnapping of Zambada.
Sources said that plane, now on display where it landed in New Mexico, at a museum attached to the Doña Ana County International Jetport, bore signs of being used for landings on remote airstrips: chips on the propellers, a bit of brush stuck to the wing, bald tires.
Inside the plane, there was evidence that showed Zambada had been zip-tied to his seat during the flight. It also appeared that Guzmán López had brought along snacks from the Mexican gas station chain Oxxo.
Zambada’s attorney, Frank Perez, told The Times that his client recognized Jando — and feared the flight would be his last.
“He thought Joaquín was going to throw him off the plane,” Perez said. “But Joaquín told him, ‘No, I’m not going to throw you off the plane.’ He goes, ‘I’m going to take you to the United States. I’m going to get a good deal. I’m going to get three years and you’re going to go to jail just like my father.’”
Guzmán López has since pleaded guilty to federal drug-smuggling charges in Chicago. Court filings show that he has agreed to cooperate with investigators and testify at trials, but U.S. authorities maintain he will not receive any benefits or reduced prison time for kidnapping Zambada.
Before the kidnapping, Jando was responsible for flying senior cartel members to important meetings and helping them evade capture when authorities closed in, according to court filings. He also ferried weapons to groups “engaged in armed conflict with rival cartel members and warring sub-groups within the Sinaloa Cartel.”
He personally delivered large shipments of cocaine for Guzmán Salazar, and court records say that work paid handsomely. Once in 2017, he pocketed $200,000 cash after flying about 880 pounds of cocaine from Costa Rica to Sinaloa.
When Jando arrived in the U.S. with Guzmán López and Zambada on July 25, 2024, it seems he was let go because federal authorities had never heard of him and had no charge on which to hold him. His grand jury indictment did not come until January 2025.
It’s unclear exactly how and when Jando returned to Mexico, but he soon turned back up in Sinaloa working for Los Chapitos.
According to multiple reports in Mexican news outlets, Jando was involved in one of the most shocking incidents in the war that erupted between Los Chapitos and Zambada’s cartel faction in the aftermath of the kidnapping.
In October and November 2024, a small aircraft dropped improvised explosives onto ranches in the mountains of Durango state, targeting known Zambada strongholds.
Although nobody was reported killed, the “bombazos” reportedly left residents in the small towns of Vascogil and Tamazula de Victoria terrified. It has become common for cartels to use drones to drop explosives from the sky, but the use of a plane was highly unusual. Several media reports said Mexican authorities had determined that Jando played a role in the bombings.
Jando was captured a few months later, in February 2025, after a shootout with Mexican security forces that left one soldier dead and five injured. He was tracked down in the town of Jesús María, a bastion of Los Chapitos on the outskirts of Culiacán, where another of El Chapo’s sons, Ovidio Guzmán López, was arrested after a firefight in 2023.
Several reports said that Jando was a key figure in the cartel’s efforts to free Ovidio Guzmán López before he could be transported out of Sinaloa. That mission ultimately failed: Ovidio Guzmán López was whisked out of the state on a military aircraft and extradited to Chicago, where he later pleaded guilty to federal charges, and, like his brother, agreed to cooperate in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Video taken after Jando’s arrest shows him being escorted in handcuffs by a squad of Mexican commandos. During the perp walk, he could be seen wearing a hoodie that signaled his allegiance to La Chapiza, as the faction run by Los Chapitos is known. On his chest was a cartoon teddy bear dressed in camouflage emblazoned with El Chapo’s initials JGL, short for Joaquín Guzmán Loera.
The head of Mexico’s federal security forces, Omar García Harfuch, trumpeted the arrest at a news conference with President Claudia Sheinbaum, identifying him as a pilot and “key operator” in the Sinaloa cartel.
Asked whether the captured man was involved in Zambada’s kidnapping, Harfuch said the matter was still under investigation. Without referring to Jando by name, he said the person taken into custody was known to be “a trusted pilot for the leader of the criminal cell linked to the unlawful detention of the person who was handed over to the United States.”
He was quietly transferred into the custody of the U.S. Department of Justice six months later, along with more than two dozen other defendants accused of being high-ranking cartel members.
Sheinbaum has since faced questions about why her administration allowed the pilot out of the country while they claimed to be investigating the events surrounding Zambada’s capture, including the assassination of a prominent Sinaloan politician.
Earlier this year, the office of Mexico’s attorney general claimed officials were unaware of Jando’s true identity and role in the Zambada affair until recently.
In a news release issued last month, the Mexican attorney general’s office said Jando was initially identified by another name. It was only in June — 10 months after he was handed over to the U.S. for prosecution — that authorities verified his true identity and role in the Zambada kidnapping by using investigative files that included recordings of his voice and fingerprints.
Mexican authorities said in the release that they are continuing to investigate the case.
Court records show Jando faces a minimum of 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in April to the drug conspiracy charges against him. Prosecutors have asked the court to limit his maximum sentence to 30 years.
Jando’s plea agreement makes no mention of cooperation, but it is presumed that he would be a key witness if Guzmán Salazar ever stands trial in the United States.
His lawyer, Jonathan Savella, said he could “neither confirm nor deny” whether his client is cooperating.
If Jando does provide information against Los Chapitos, it would be a complete reversal for the man who rose from drug mule to trusted advisor.
For a time, according to court documents, he once handled the important job of “maintaining radios and communications” for Guzmán Salazar, ensuring that one of the most wanted men in Mexico could operate freely.
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