The Sinaloa boss, José Angel “El Flaco” Rivera Zazueta, a top lieutenant of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, would come to Italy only for the final stages. Based in Asia and living in places such as Taiwan, “El Flaco” had principally focused on managing the Sinaloa Cartel’s synthetic drug trafficking in Asia. The Sinaloa Cartel looked to diversify sources of production, and settled on the Netherlands in 2015. Sinaloa Cartel had also long cooperated with the triads in trying to build up a growing Chinese and Asian cocaine market.