Arrest of cartel leader ‘El Mayo’ in US sends Mexico into turmoil

For nearly 40 years, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García eluded authorities as the Sinaloa Cartel he helped found grew into one of the world’s most powerful drug-trafficking empires. But that fortune came to a dramatic end last month on a ranch in northern Mexico.

Zambada says he was ambushed to meet with Joaquin Guzman, whose father, Sinaloa co-founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is being held in the U.S. A hood was thrown over his head before he was bundled into a private jet and restrained — reportedly by the younger Guzman 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 provided to media by his lawyer.

US authorities consider the arrests a victory for both countries, although they deny that US resources were used in the operation.

But the incident has left Mexico — which has borne the brunt of the violence unleashed by drug cartels — reeling from the possibility that it will complicate relations with the U.S., expose corruption and unleash more brutality. Officials are outraged, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador saying this week “who knows” whether U.S. agents were involved. They say they are taking action 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 countries, which share a 2,000-mile border, have long fought over U.S. counter-drug operations in Mexico. Security cooperation had already been eroded by López Obrador, a left-wing 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 report of El Mayo’s arrest raised eyebrows among security analysts and the Mexican media, the latter joking that the notorious drug lord had simply “fallen out of the sky” onto US soil.

“I believe they were involved… we don’t know to what point or when,” said Raúl Benítez Manaut, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The U.S. likely didn’t notify 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 whoever transferred Zambada to a foreign power. In a statement, he said U.S. authorities have not since provided information they requested about the plane.

It’s not the first time a cross-border arrest in Mexico has sparked controversy. In 2020, there was outrage when U.S. authorities arrested former Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos as he arrived for a family vacation on drug charges. After threats to withdraw his cooperation, the U.S. dropped the charges and released him back into Mexico.

This time, authorities have been quick to quash talk of a rift. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said the cooperation was “unprecedented.”

“The work we do here is done with full respect for Mexican sovereignty and we will continue to work together as partners,” he said at a news conference on Friday.

Salazar’s statement sought to allay fears that Mexico’s disgraced intelligence services could block cross-border cooperation. Some officials also hope a reset is possible when the country’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, takes office in October.

“Overall, it shows the poor state of U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, where you don’t even have a . . . comparable version of events,” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, a researcher at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. “Depending on who’s in the White House and . . . who’s in the U.S. embassy in Mexico, that could potentially be a clean slate or not.”

The US has captured one of the Sinaloa leaders, El Chapo, and efforts to arrest the other leaders have intensified as his children have risen up the ranks and turned the cartel’s attention to the production of fentanyl, a deadly opioid that is the leading cause of death among young people in the US.

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 operations. U.S. prosecutors are seeking to try him in Brooklyn federal court, the same one where El Chapo was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

It was one of several recent arrests in recent years targeting Sinaloa operatives. Another of “Los Chapitos” — as Guzmán’s sons are known — Ovidio Guzmán was captured in 2019 but quickly released by Mexican authorities when cartel members took over the city of Culiacán in response. He was then recaptured and extradited to the U.S. last year.

Organized crime groups in Mexico operate with the protection of, and sometimes in cooperation with, local and federal authorities. Recent details of this have come to light during recent U.S. prosecutions of cartels.

In his letter after his arrest, Zambada said a Sinaloa police officer accompanied him to the meeting and that the state’s governor, Rubén Rocha, was also expected to attend. Rocha, who is from the ruling Morena party, denied this, and both López Obrador and Sheinbaum have backed him.

“Imagine what he knows or can tell,” Farfán-Méndez said. “I don’t mean the stories of narcos per se, but how actors at different levels of government benefited and helped.”

The focus on Sinaloa could help Mexico’s other major international drug trafficking group, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which security advisers say drives much of the violence. The U.S. and Mexico say they are pursuing both groups, but it has had more visible success with the former.

“The Jalisco cartel is licking its lips because now they have the whole table to themselves,” Benítez Manaut said. “It’s like taking Pepsi out of the competition with Coca-Cola, the whole market is for Coca-Cola.”

The situation in Sinaloa has been tense for months. After the arrests, the army sent 200 special forces and paratroopers to the capital Culiacán.

For the US, arresting and jailing cartel leaders may be a dramatic statement. But Mexican security experts and politicians often complain that arresting big names does little to stop the flow of drugs, and that Mexicans are only killed, either by making the arrests or by provoking conflict.

Zambada has appealed for calm amid the apparent rift between him and El Chapo’s sons, but some say that won’t last long. “It’s going to be a cold war that could last months or years,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a security expert at Lantia Consultores. “It’s going to be a very fragile balance.”

Additional reporting by Joe Miller