Ismael El Mayo Zambada García was arrested in the state of Texas by agents of the United States Federal Drug Administration (DEA) after a thorough follow-up investigation into the so-called boss of bosses of the Sinaloa cartel, confirmed a senior DEA official.
El Mayo Zambada, the great Mexican drug lord who founded the Sinaloa Cartel and who never set foot in a prison, was arrested in Texas
Ismael Mayo Zambada García, the legendary leader of the Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested in El Paso, Texas. The arrest of the emblematic drug trafficker, who had not set foot in prison in decades of criminal life and whose head had a reward of 15 million dollars, took place in a private airport in the border city. The arrest was announced by the weekly Zeta of Tijuana and confirmed by two sources of the operation to the Reuters agency. Zambada is 76 years old.
El Mayo, born in Culiacán in January 1948, had been wanted by the US authorities for decades. His name appears in at least five extensive judicial cases opened between 2003 and 2016 in various federal courts in the country. In all of them, he is accused of facilitating the trafficking of cocaine and marijuana into the United States and of inheriting the criminal empire once Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán was arrested and prosecuted.
Despite his long criminal record, the United States anti-narcotics agency highlighted something unique about Mayo Zambada. “Even though he has dedicated his entire adult life to being a major drug trafficker, he has not spent a single day in prison,” the organization states on the page that offers a million-dollar reward to anyone who provides information leading to his capture.
The arrest of El Mayo took place in “unusual conditions”, and not everyone in the United States government knows the details of the monitoring of one of the historical leaders of drug trafficking in Mexico.
The Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, confirmed in a press release the arrest of Zambada García, along with Joaquín Guzmán López, son of El Chapo Guzmán.
Both men face multiple charges in the United States for leading the cartel criminal operations, including the manufacturing of fentanyl and drug trafficking networks, Garland said.
El Mayo would have surrendered to the United States authorities. His son and firstborn, Jesús Vicente Zambada Niebla, El Vicentillo is a protected witness for the US Department of Justice.
During the trial against El Chapo Guzmán in the Federal Court of Brooklyn, New York, and before Judge Brian Cogan, El Vicentillo, as an incriminating witness, said that he gave all the information regarding his father to the DEA.
Zambada Niebla maintained that the DEA and Department of Justice prosecutors were given the locations of his father’s safe houses, the take-off and landing strips he used in the Sierra in the Golden Triangle area, and the cell phone numbers. that he used
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Statement on Arrests of Alleged Leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel Ismael Zambada Garcia (El Mayo) and Joaquin Guzman Lopez
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) July 26, 2024
🔗: https://t.co/LumvDMKx2F pic.twitter.com/Wcm20MLrhC
According to the documents and testimonies presented by the Justice Department prosecutors in the trial against El Chapo, when El Vicentillo was held in the punishment cell of a federal prison known as “El Hoyo,” the DEA agents contacted El Mayo by telephone so he could speak with his son.
In other words, even the DEA communicated directly with El Mayo and it is not known if it was still being tracked to date.
El Mayo Zambada faces accusations of conspiracy to export significant quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamines, and synthetic drugs made with fentanyl to the United States in several states; among these, New York, Texas, California, New York, Illinois, and even the US capital.
For the accusation of conspiracy to export and distribute drugs to the United States, if convicted in a trial and in a Federal Court, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García can be sentenced to life in prison.
San Miguel Times
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