Mexican drug lords Ismael Zambada Garcia, or “El Mayo,” and a son of famed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán were taken into custody Thursday by U.S. authorities in Texas.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Zambada and Guzman Lopez had “eluded law enforcement for decades” and “will now face justice in the United States,” in one of the biggest victories for US law enforcement against the cartels.
Zambada helped to found the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo decades ago.
The arrests were the results of a stunning betrayal by one of the men, a son of the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, to lure the other under false pretenses onto a plane that delivered them both into the hands of American law enforcement.
El Chapo’s son had persuaded Zambada to join him on the flight by saying they were going to look at real estate, officials said, but the plane instead headed north across the border.
Officials said the two men were arrested at a small local airport outside of El Paso, Texas, on Thursday afternoon when their private plane landed there from Mexico.
According to some U.S. officials, the younger Guzmán López was trying to help his brother Ovidio, who was already in U.S. custody, when he invited Zambada onto the plane. The move was seen by the officials as a way to offer American authorities the significant target they had long been seeking but could never quite get themselves.
It was a major blow to the Sinaloa federation, a global drug-trafficking syndicate considered the No. 1 supplier of fentanyl to the United States.
The cartel, one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations, is thought to be responsible for the trafficking of vast amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the US.
A power struggle between Zambada and El Chapo’s sons, also known as the Chapitos, has existed for some time in the cartel.
With Zambada gone, violence inside the cartel and other criminal organizations in Mexico is set to ramp up, but there is also an opportunity for the U.S. to obtain information on other corrupt Mexican officials.