American law enforcement officials arrested two top leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most dominant criminal organizations in Mexico, the Justice Department said on Thursday.
The two operatives, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, are among the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico, commanding massive cocaine and fentanyl businesses that move narcotics into the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
Both men were in custody in El Paso, Texas.
The arrests were a victory for the F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, which have been chasing the top ranks of the Sinaloa Cartel for years.
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”
Mr. Zambada García, 76, a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel who is known as El Mayo, has been charged in several federal indictments stretching back more than two decades.
Officials said he was flown to the United States after being lured onto a private plane under false pretenses by Mr. Guzmán López.
Mr. Guzmán López, a son of the notorious crime boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, is said to have been elevated to a leadership role in the cartel along with his three other brothers after the extradition of his father to the United States in 2017. His brother Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested in Mexico and extradited last September to Chicago, where he is expected to stand trial.
Joaquín Guzmán López is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Chicago in the coming days. It was unclear on Thursday night where Mr. Zambada García would be prosecuted.
Mr. Zambada García has never spent time in jail, according to the U.S. government, unlike his top ally El Chapo, who after his extradition was convicted in Brooklyn federal court in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison on drug conspiracy charges.
While the successful case against El Chapo was a major step in American efforts to pursue cartel leaders, the U.S. authorities had struggled to secure a case against Mr. Zambada García. They had captured him extensively on wiretaps over the years and came very close to apprehending him just before El Chapo was taken into custody.
El Chapo cultivated the media and attained something of a global celebrity status. Mr. Zambada García, by contrast, has always been a quieter, more old-school criminal figure. He has been content to live a simple, almost rustic life in his compound in Sinaloa, known as El Alamo.
Known as a pragmatist, Mr. Zambada García has been in contact with U.S. federal officials for at least three years, discussing the terms of his potential surrender, according to five people briefed on the matter.
But on Thursday, he was unaware he was headed to the United States when he boarded a private airplane with Mr. Guzmán López, who told him they were going to look at some real estate properties, according to two American law enforcement officials who were briefed on the situation.
Mr. Zambada García has long had a kind of surrogate paternal relationship with Joaquin and Ovidio Guzmán López, the two younger sons of El Chapo. Joaquin Guzmán López was seeking to help Ovidio, who was already in U.S. custody, when he invited Mr. Zambada García onto the plane, the officials said.
The relationship between Mr. Zambada García and El Chapo was solidified in the early 2000s, after El Chapo escaped from prison in Mexico. The two men entered into one of the most profitable and bloody partnerships in the annals of criminal history, involving international drug trafficking, mass murder and political corruption.
The arrest of Mr. Zambada García, long known as the most politically connected member of the Sinaloa cartel, is likely to alarm former officials from several past Mexican presidential administrations.
Falko Ernst, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said it was unlikely that the arrests would have a major impact on the smuggling of fentanyl or other drugs from Mexico, since the Sinaloa Cartel was a deeply decentralized organization already.
“We aren’t talking about a structure that depends on a few kingpins — it’s very diffuse and resilient to these kinds of hits,” Mr. Ernst said. If anything, he said, the move could spark more violence as factions vie for control amid a vacuum of power at the very top.
“There’s already a bunch of pressure on that structure and there has been a lot of infighting,” Mr. Ernst said. “So we’re definitely facing a scenario of greater violence, potentially.”
All four of El Chapo’s sons are facing charges in the United States, including the two who are still at large, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar.
Mr. Zambada García suffered a brutal public betrayal during El Chapo’s trial: His own son testified for the prosecution, offering a detailed account of many aspects of the cartel’s sprawling criminal enterprise. The son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, had been arrested by the Mexican authorities and extradited to the United States in 2010.
At the trial, Mr. Zambada Niebla demonstrated a mastery of the inner workings of the cartel empire, describing how his father had helped traffic tons of drugs through a vast network of smuggling routes and money laundering schemes.
His father’s budget for bribes was as high as $1 million per month, he said, and included payments to a military officer who once served as a personal guard to Mexico’s former president, Vicente Fox.
After the news of Mr. Zambada García’s arrest, Mexicans on social media began circulating an interview with the drug lord published by Proceso magazine in 2010. In it, Mr. Zambada García mused about what would happen if he ever turned himself into the authorities.
“My case should be exemplary, a lesson for everyone,” he said, adding: “But after a few days, we learn nothing has changed.”
Referring to cartel bosses, he said: “Locked up, dead or extradited, their replacements are already out there.”
The post Two Top Mexican Cartel Leaders Are Arrested by U.S. Authorities appeared first on New York Times.
