What are the implications of the arrest of drug lord ‘El Mayo’ Zambada in the US? – DNyuz

Monterrey, Mexico – It was a dramatic fall for two high-ranking members of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel.

On July 25, the United States announced that it had arrested 76-year-old Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and 38-year-old Joaquin Guzman Lopez at an airport near El Paso, Texas.

One was the co-founder of the cartel. The other was the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, another co-founder of the drug trafficking syndicate.

While the US sees the arrests as a victory in its efforts to combat cross-border smuggling, experts in Mexico fear the events could unleash a wave of instability, both in international relations and local security.

Two weeks later, much remains unclear. Even the circumstances surrounding the sudden arrests are shrouded in mystery.

U.S. officials have told reporters anonymously that Guzman lured Lopez Zambada into a small propeller plane under the guise of inspecting secret airstrips in northern Mexico.

But, officials explained, it was a trap: Guzman Lopez wanted to surrender to U.S. authorities and take Zambada with him.

Zambada’s attorney, Frank Perez, has disputed this story, claiming that Guzman Lopez instead kidnapped his client. Perez also dismissed speculation that Zambada surrendered voluntarily.

Both men have since pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in US court.

While the circumstances under which Zambada came to the U.S. are unlikely to affect the criminal charges against him, Falko Ernst, a senior security analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the situation could potentially damage cross-border relations with Mexico.

Indeed, the Mexican government expressed frustration over the surprising nature of the arrests.

“That could be counterproductive in terms of further eroding trust between the two countries, in terms of security cooperation,” Ernst said. “We’ll see to what extent Mexico will try to make it clear that they are not in favor of these kinds of things becoming a normality.”

The cross-border relationship, Ernst added, is important for both countries. “Security is just one pillar of a very complex bilateral relationship that also includes trade, commerce, manufacturing, the energy sector and migration, among other things.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Rosa Icela Rodriguez, the country’s security minister, have already called on the US to disclose the circumstances surrounding the arrests.

“You’re asking if it was a delivery, if it was a seizure,” Icela Rodriguez said in a call with reporters during the president’s morning press conference on July 26. “That’s part of the investigation and part of the information that we would expect from the United States government.”

On August 2, Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena also explained that she had asked her US counterpart Antony Blinken for a detailed report on the plane carrying the drug traffickers, including its departure location.

The arrests come at a crucial time in bilateral relations between the US and Mexico, with the US in the midst of a heated presidential race and immigration a major election issue.

Ernst pointed out that there is growing discussion in Washington, especially among Republicans, about the need for aggressive military action to confront the cartels and stop their smuggling of fentanyl and other drugs.

Figures like former President Donald Trump have called for the U.S. to “go to war with the cartels.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis even threatened to “deploy the Coast Guard and the Navy” if Mexican ports were not secured.

“These louder voices are gaining more and more support,” Ernst said.

Meanwhile, he added, bilateral relations have deteriorated and there is a growing sense that patience is running out. “We have seen a stagnation and inertia in defining security cooperation and security policy in Mexico.”

But the tensions following the arrests of Zambada and Guzman Lopez are not limited to the international stage.

Andres Villarreal, a journalist from Culiacan, Sinaloa, warns that the events of July 25 could increase violence in certain regions of Mexico.

The journalist described an uneasy calm in the northwestern state of Sinaloa as the arrests have put the population on edge. “It’s like that calm that comes after a storm — or before,” he said.

In the months leading up to the arrests, Sinaloa had already faced a series of upheavals within its namesake cartel, Villarreal explained.

Federal troops had increased their presence in certain areas, leading to arrests, detentions and even deaths of key members of the drug trafficking organization.

These attacks on the cartel hierarchy have increased uncertainty among residents, who fear violent reprisals.

Iliana Padilla Reyes, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has researched violence and peacebuilding in her home state of Sinaloa, explained to Al Jazeera that the cartel operates within an established structure, which is driven by violence.

Key figures from both the legal and illegal spheres determine the rules within this system.

“This policy of targeting the leaders of organized crime is the cause of these violent violations of agreements, and that generates a lot of instability,” said Padilla Reyes.

One possible consequence of these arrests, given the resignation of a key leader like Zambada, is a succession dispute.

The extent to which this could lead to infighting among Sinaloa cartel factions remains uncertain. Villarreal noted that while there is much speculation, it is likely that the arrests will cause significant unrest within the organization and its broader ecosystem.

The journalist predicts that the unrest could have consequences for the drug routes, “what the business itself represents, who falls under it, who is involved in the business (and) the cells that are spread across the country”.

“Because we are not just talking about the state of Sinaloa,” Villarreal said, pointing to the international network that controls the cartel.

Ernst, the security analyst, echoed that observation. He believes the fallout from Zambada’s arrest will extend into Mexico and beyond.

“The Sinaloa cartel has a presence in almost all Mexican states. So the ripples were really felt throughout Mexico, but also beyond, as the Sinaloa cartel also has a presence in Central America, South America and other parts of the world,” he said.

That instability, he explained, is a result of targeting high-level drug lords without tackling the entire cartel structure.

That approach — known as the “kingpin strategy” — has long been a cornerstone of the U.S.’s so-called “war on drugs.” The idea is that by attacking the leadership, the rest of the cartel will be left in disarray.

But critics like Ernst said the “kingpin strategy” has not dismantled Mexico’s major drug trafficking organizations but rather fragmented them.

“This has really left the country with a very, very high level of very violent feuds between a large number of smaller or medium-sized criminal groups that have emerged as splits from much larger and more cohesive criminal organizations,” Ernst said.

He added that flashy arrests targeting big-name criminals often create a simplistic “good versus evil” narrative, obscuring the complex nature of criminal networks and their connections to government.

“It is politically convenient to be able to focus on the stereotypical bad guys and to maintain the narrative of the all-powerful criminal actor and the cartel that exists independently of state power, which is not the case,” Ernst explained.

Experts like Ernst and Padilla were adamant that the July arrests would not disrupt the flow of narcotics into the U.S., no matter how important Zambada and Guzman Lopez were to Mexico’s drug trade.

Padilla explained that the previous arrests of El Chapo and his other son Ovidio Guzman Lopez in 2023 also did not put an end to the production and trafficking of substances such as cocaine and fentanyl.

Villarreal went further, quoting Zambada’s words from a 2010 interview with the late Mexican journalist Julio Scherer: “If they catch me or kill me … nothing will change.”

“He himself determines that in reality nothing is going to happen,” Villarreal explained.

Zambada may have been the Sinaloa cartel’s most recent figurehead, but Villarreal believes his role as leader could easily be filled by someone else.

“Right now his name is Ismael, and tomorrow he could be called Andres, Juan, Francisco, whatever it may be. It will be someone very similar who will take charge of the organization.”

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