The Justice Department announced Thursday the capture of two leaders of the Sinaloa cartel as part of an effort to combat the fentanyl epidemic.
The arrests of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is a major victory for U.S. law enforcement, who have worked to thwart the flow of drugs into the country through various drug cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel. U.S. law enforcement used internal rifts within the historic cartel to get the kingpins onto a plane headed for El Paso, Texas, for the dramatic capture.
Zambada, who was the alleged ringleader of the operation that funnels fentanyl into the United States, boarded the El Paso-bound plane, thinking it was going to inspect property in Mexico, near the U.S.-Mexico border, a law enforcement official told CNN. The official also said Guzman Lopez helped to capture Zambada.
Guzman Lopez and his brothers took over leadership positions in the Sinaloa cartel in 2017 when their father was extradited to the U.S. El Chapo, who is one of the most notorious drug kingpins in history, was found guilty of 26 drug-related violations and a murder conspiracy in a Brooklyn court in 2019.
The relationship between Zambada and Guzman Lopez deteriorated after the capture of Guzman Lopez’s father in 2016 by U.S. authorities. Guzman Lopez blamed Zambada for the capture, according to Fox News.
Despite the successful capture and conviction of the Sinaloa cartel founder, law enforcement has struggled to bring Zambada to justice. Authorities have collected mountains of evidence against Zambada via wiretaps, but his penchant for laying low and mostly keeping to his compound, known as El Alamo, made him difficult to arrest.
Zambada might have been growing tired of evading authorities, as people briefed on the cartel leader told the New York Times he had been in contact with federal officials talking about surrendering for at least three years.
El Chapo and Zambada began working together in the early 2000s, but Zambada’s son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, testified against the cartel boss during his trial, helping prosecutors make their case and possibly leading to the bad blood between the two men arrested, without incident, by FBI agents in El Paso on Thursday.
The DOJ offered few details, with Attorney General Merrick Garland saying they were “taken into custody” and were both “facing multiple charges in the U.S. for leading the cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.”
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The arrests come more than eight years after El Chapo was captured and extradited to the U.S. in 2016. He was put on trial for his various drug trafficking charges and was convicted by a New York jury in 2019. El Chapo was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.
Garland, in his statement Thursday, said, “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced” and vowed that the DOJ “will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”
