Feds hold the mayo — El Chapo's shadowy Sinaloa drug cartel co-founder 'El Mayo' in U.S. custody.

https://www.reuters.com/world/ameri...yo-is-us-custody-sources-say-2024-07-25/

https://chicago.suntimes.com/el-cha...-co-founder-el-mayo-u-s-custody-thursday

WOW this is crazy El Mayo looks like he made a deal and needs medical care.

Check this out
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/06/mexico-arrest-el-chapo-son-deadly-violence-sinola

Thats from 2023.

Worth Billions of Dollars and he can't get medical care in Mexico or another country other than America. Unreal. He must be terminal and finally wants to turn himself in.

Oops. You are correct ,Sir. Should have checked more thoroughly.
It even says the arrest took place in Mexico,which of course it didn't.
Good catch.

Its not your fault!!!

I read he was set up by a high ranking figure him and the Chapo son went on the plane to check out new air fields for business instead the plane flew over the border where the Fbi and DEA were waiting.

Citing Mexican and US officials, the Wall Street Journal reports that Zambada was tricked into boarding the plane by a high-ranking Sinaloa member following a months-long operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI.
The paper added that Zambada believed he was going to inspect clandestine airfields in Mexico.
Officials said Zambada was "lured" onto a private plane under "false pretences" by Guzman Lopez, the New York Times reports.
Zambada believed the plane would fly south in Mexico but instead it flew north and landed in El Paso, said Fox News Correspondent Bryan Llenas citing law enforcement sources.
Guzman Lopez surrendered to US authorities and turned on Zambada because he “blamed Mayo for the capture of his father”, Mr Llenas added.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ng4g31x1wo

Are there any comprehensive books chronicling the history of the cartels in Mexico? Like five families by selwyn Raab? Narcos Mexico is all i have to go off of, andvwe all know hollywood rarely follows the truth.

Surprised they didn't whack him like they did to Giancana.

Obviously the son got an amazing plea bargain if he brought him to us Alive. I wonder if this means his father will be moved to a more humane facility?

I recommend this one.
Not focusing only on Mexican cartels, but on how global traffic works.

Zero Zero Zero Paperback – 25 Aug. 2016
English edition by Roberto Saviano (auteur)

From the international bestselling author of Gomorrah, this searing exposé reveals how dirty money and the drug trade are at the heart of our lives, our economy, and our world

In many countries, 'zero zero' or double zero flour is the finest, best flour on the market. Among narco-traffickers, then, 'zero zero zero' is the nickname for the very purest, highest quality grade of cocaine. From Mexican cartels to Milanese financiers, Guatemalan mercenaries to Ukrainian warlords, Calabrian traffickers to the traders in Wall Street and London who wash the money clean, this is an unforgettable story that goes around the globe and through every level of society to show the extent to which the drug trade affects us all.

If I was a conspiracy theory nut, I might think the timing was interesting. Almost like it was to make a certain political person who has been an abject failure at a certain task, look like they're doing a good job, while they aspire to a higher office.

But I'm not a conspiracy theory nut.

Flight to Texas: Sinaloa Cartel leadership arrested in U.S. – Questions remain about “El Mayo” Zambada’s capture https://gangstersinc.org/2024/07/26...s-remain-about-el-mayo-zambadas-capture/

100% they will use it in their campaign anyway.

Indeed.

This is a guy who was worth Billions and chose to live his life in his home country of Mexico, without flash or fancy things. Just as a rancher like many others in the area. He pretty much didn't change at all even when he built his empire and became the wealthiest drug lord on the planet.

‘He’s a straight-up rancher’: Chicago twins who cooperated against Sinaloa cartel talk about arrest of ‘El Mayo’

As the leader of one of the world’s largest and most brutal drug-trafficking organizations, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is far from the “narco” stereotype portrayed on some TV special.

Unlike his partner, former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada has operated largely out of the glare of public and media attention. He wasn’t labeled Public Enemy No. 1. He dresses simply, prefers life on one of his many cattle ranches to extravagant parties, yachts or beachside nightclubs. Those who know him often referred to him as “Del Sombrero,” after his trademark wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

“He’s a straight-up rancher, old school,” said Pedro Flores, the convicted drug trafficker from Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood who, along with his twin brother, helped the U.S. government bring indictments against a slew of Sinaloa figures, including Zambada and Chapo. “The way he treated people, he was the most understanding … always looking to please the people around him.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024...loa-cartel-talk-about-arrest-of-el-mayo/

Little is known about Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada - this image was taken on Thursday and obtained by the BBC's US partner CBS

[img]https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/ae18/live/d1aa0100-4b6e-11ef-b2d2-cdb23d5d7c5b.png.webp[/img]

Rat bastard!


How “El Chapo’s” Son Duped Drug-Cartel Kingpin “El Mayo” Zambada and Turned Himself In


MEXICO CITY—El Chapo’s son wanted to turn himself in.

Joaquín Guzmán López was the financial brains behind the Sinaloa drug cartel that he and his three brothers had inherited from their father, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was captured in 2016. The Mexican criminal group was responsible for sending billions of dollars worth of fentanyl across the U.S. border, feeding a national addiction to a synthetic opioid that has ravaged communities across America.

Federal agents doubted the offer was serious when Guzmán Lopez first made it. Then he upped the ante: He would work with U.S. authorities to capture Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a 76-year-old don who had founded the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo, said current and former U.S. and Mexican officials. Law enforcement found the offer even more dubious and questioned whether he would deliver on his promise.

Then, on Thursday, Zambada joined Guzmán López on a flight to have a look at land and clandestine airstrips in northern Mexico, according to people familiar with the operation. But instead, Guzmán López had secretly agreed with U.S. officials to touch down at an airport near El Paso, Texas, these people said.

Upon landing, U.S. officials took both men into custody. It was one of the most important arrests of a Mexican drug lord in the past four decades. Homeland Security Investigations led the case in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Zambada’s attorney declared his client not guilty at the El Paso federal court on Friday.

Guzmán López wanted to avoid what he feared would be a violent end to his drug-traffikcing career, according to a U.S. official and Oscar Hagelsieb, a former senior HSI agent in the border city of El Paso, Texas, familiar with the operation.

“Young cartel family members don’t necessarily want the fear and stress of leading a cartel,” he said. “They know what comes with being part of the family and being part of the cartel, and that’s violence and chaos.”

Guzmán López’s attorney declined to comment.

Hagelsieb said he believes Guzmán López is cooperating in exchange for a lesser sentence and seek to enjoy his drug-trafficking spoils while he is still young.


Over the past decade, the “Chapitos” had gained notoriety in the U.S. as they funneled millions of fentanyl pills across the southwest border. HSI, a little-known U.S. law-enforcement agency, was helping to dismantle their network, former and current U.S. officials said. The U.S. had placed a $5 million bounty on the head of Guzmán López and each of his brothers.

Last year, Mexican special forces captured Guzmán López’s brother Ovidio in a violent raid with intelligence provided by the U.S. In the attack, Black Hawk helicopters with mounted belt-fed miniguns strafed his compound in a town north of Culiacán, pushing back Ovidio’s inner security detail. By the time he was captured, about a hundred gunmen were dead, as well as 10 Mexican soldiers. U.S. and Mexican officials said.

Guzmán López and Zambada are “two of the most notorious leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the deadliest enterprises in the world,” President Biden said Friday. “Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl.”

The Mexican government didn’t participate “in that detention or surrender,” said Mexico’s security minister, Rosa Icela Rodríguez. The government had been informed of the event by the U.S. Embassy, she said at a news conference Friday. Mexico asked for, and received, photographs and fingerprints of the two men, confirming their identities. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was notified of the arrests on Thursday afternoon.


Rodríguez, who said there were four outstanding warrants for Zambada, repeatedly underlined the close cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican government on law-enforcement matters.

She said that Guzmán López and Zambada took off on a Cessna aircraft. She identified an American pilot as having flown the plane that allegedly took the two Sinaloa bosses to the U.S.

But the pilot identified by Mexican officials as Larry Curtis Parker told The Wall Street Journal that his Cessna was mistakenly singled out because it was parked near a different aircraft in Hermosillo, the capital of northern Sonora state. He said that he routinely flies to Hermosillo for hunting and fishing and that he flew back this week by himself to New Mexico.

News footage suggests a larger, twin-engine Beechcraft King Air might have shuttled the two suspects back to the U.S. A government spokesman declined to comment.


https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/...o-zambada-and-turned-himself-in-14bfc7ce

I applaud Joaquín Guzmán López for turning this scumbag motherfucker in and wanting to turn his life around. Good for him. Who the hell wants to lead a life like this? After having lost a close friend to fentanyl, I could not be more happy right now lol

They are too greedy and should have never get involved in that business. Fentanyl is a game changer. It's also sad how individuals suffering from chronic pain eventually became opioid addicts. Coolio, Tom Petty, Prince to name a few victims.

It's appalling how many good people, with so much life left to live, had their lives cut short because of this evil. Defending someone like El Mayo shows a complete lack of humanity

His father is gone, his brothers one by one are captured or about to be. He would die alone and more than likely have to live his life in hiding from his enemies and authorities.

It was time.

It is presumed that his son Ismael Zambada Sicairos, alias “El Mayito Flaco,” could be his heir.

https://www.dea.gov/fugitives/ismael-zambada-sicairos

I will bet you that these animals will find someone close to Joaquín Guzmán López and murder them in the worst way to send a message

Absolutely.

People in the Mexican government are also worried, no Mexican agencies were involved in the operation to arrest Zambada that says something.

Ovidio Guzman, from Los Chapitos, Not Released, Just Transferred
By HEARST 7/25/2024 07:50:00 PM 195 comments
Borderland Beat Contributors

Sinaloa Cartel figure Ovidio Guzman is currently being listed as having been freed from US custody on the Bureau of Prisons website, bop.gov.

His current listed release date is 7/23/2024, just two days before the major arrest of Joaquin Guzman Lopez and Mayo Zambada.

His BOP Prisoner Number is 72884-748, as noted during his first appearance before a judge in Chicago last September.

10:17 pm

LibroNegro, on Twitter, reports that Ovidio is still in prison and his status as "released" is due to him being transferred.

10:23 pm

Journalist Arturo Ángel would report that while Ovidio appears to of been released from custody, his case remains pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, confirming he has not been freed from criminal prosecution as of yet.

https://www.borderlandbeat.com/2024/07/ovidio-guzman-released-days-before.html

Seems like the two Guzman brothers both made a deal like two sons of Zambada did with El Chapo.

Mexico’s Powerful Sinaloa Cartel Faces War?


Mexican kingpin Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada’s arrest with El Chapo’s son likely to set off violent jockeying for power

By Associated Press
A new era is coming for Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel in the wake of the capture by US authorities of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the last of the grand old Mexican drug traffickers.

Experts believe his arrest will usher in a new wave of violence in Mexico even as Zambada could potentially provide loads of information for US prosecutors.

Zambada, who had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison, was known for being an astute operator, skilled at corrupting officials and having an ability to negotiate with everyone, including rivals.

Removing him from the criminal landscape could set off an internal war for control of the cartel that has a global reach — as has occurred with the arrest or killings of other kingpins — and open the door to the more violent inclinations of a younger generation of Sinaloa traffickers, experts say.
With that in mind, the Mexican government deployed 200 members of its special forces Friday to Culiacan, Sinaloa state’s capital.

There is “significant potential for high escalation of violence across Mexico,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution.
That “is bad for Mexico, it’s bad for the United States, as well as the possibility that the even more vicious (Jalisco New Generation cartel) will rise to even greater importance.”
For that reason, Zambada’s arrest could be considered a “great tactical success,” but strategically problematic, Felbab-Brown said.

While details remain scarce, a United States official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Zambada was tricked into flying to the US, where he was arrested along with Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of the infamous Sinaloa leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The elder Guzmán is serving a life sentence in the United States.
A small plane left Hermosillo in northern Mexico on Thursday morning with only an American pilot aboard, bound for the airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas.
Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Friday that while one person left Hermosillo, three people arrived in New Mexico.

The flight tracking site Flight Aware showed the plane stopped transmitting its elevation and speed for about half an hour over the mountains of northern Mexico before resuming its course to the US.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a vocal critic of the strategy of taking down drug kingpins, said Friday that Mexico had not participated or known about the US operation, but said he considered the arrests an “advance.”

Later, López Obrador, while talking about where the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are battling for control of smuggling routes along the Guatemala border on Friday, downplayed the violence that had driven nearly 600 Mexicans to seek refuge in Guatemala this week.

He said, as he often has, that it’s his political adversaries who are trying to make Mexico’s violence appear to be out of control.
But those cartels were already fighting each other in many locations throughout Mexico before Zambada’s arrest.
Frank Pérez, a lawyer for Zambada, told The Associated Press that his client “did not come to the US voluntarily.”
It appeared the sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán were somehow in on the trap for Zambada, said José Reveles, author of a number of books about the cartels.

The so-called Chapitos, or Little Chapos, make up a faction within the Sinaloa cartel that was often at odds with Zambada even while trafficking drugs.
Guzmán López, who was also arrested Thursday, “is not his friend nor his collaborator,” Reveles said.
He is considered to be the least influential of the four brothers who make up the Chapitos, who are considered among the main exporters of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States.

Joaquín Guzmán López is now the second of them to land in US custody. Their chief of security was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.
Guzmán López has been accused of being the cartel’s link for importing the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl from Asia and for setting up the labs that produce the drug, Reveles said.

Anne Milgram, the US Drug Enforcement Administration chief, said that Zambada’s arrest “strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.”

During the current Mexican administration, which ends Sept. 30, Mexico has been unable to control the country’s violence.
López Obrador’s decision to focus on alleviating what he sees as the root causes of violence instead of head-on confrontation with the cartels has caused tensions with the US authorities, in particular the DEA.

Felbab-Brown said it has also allowed the cartels to accumulate power that “is unprecedented in Mexico’s history.”
Zambada could now offer reams of information about the cartel’s operations if he decides to cooperate. He faces charges in multiple US federal courts.

He was the cartel’s most skilled agent of corruption and the most influential trafficker who “has been running extensive corruption networks across many administrations in Mexico, across vast geographic spaces, from the top of the Mexican government to municipal institutions,” Felbab-Brown said.

“The most important thing to watch is how much intelligence El Mayo will now provide and how much evidence in exchange for better terms,” she said.