US arrest of El Mayo cartel leader leaves Mexico in shock

For nearly 40 years, Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garca eluded authorities as the Sinaloa Cartel he co-founded grew into one of the world's most powerful drug-trafficking empires. But that luck ran out last month on a ranch in northern Mexico.

Zambada said he was ambushed before a meeting with Joaqun Guzmn, whose father, Sinaloa co-founder Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn, is imprisoned in the United States. A hood was thrown over his head before he was whisked away on a private jet and tied up, apparently by the younger Guzmn himself, for the three-hour flight to the airport in El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by U.S. officials, according to a statement his lawyer told the media.

U.S. officials have portrayed the arrests as a victory for both countries, although they have denied that U.S. resources were used in the operation.

But the incident has left Mexico, which has borne the brunt of drug cartel violence, reeling from a situation that could complicate relations with the United States, expose corruption and spark more brutality. Authorities are angry, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this week that he did not know whether American agents were involved. They said they were taking steps to find out what really happened.

“They have this temptation to want to reign everywhere, to stick their noses in everything,” López Obrador said of the U.S. government. “I just want to remind people that Mexico is an independent, free and sovereign country.”

The plane that allegedly carried Ismael Zambada and Joaqun Guzman to the United States Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

The two countries, which share a 2,000-mile border, have long feuded over U.S. counternarcotics operations in Mexico. Security cooperation was already strained under López Obrador, a left-wing nationalist who frustrated U.S. officials by taking a hands-off approach to criminal groups that murder and extort people.

The U.S. version of El Mayo's arrest has raised eyebrows among Mexican security analysts and media, with the latter darkly joking that the notorious drug lord had simply fallen from the sky onto U.S. soil.

“I think they were involved … we don't know to what extent or when,” said Ral Bentez Manaut, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The United States probably didn't inform Mexico because of Zambada's seniority, he speculated: “To avoid a leak … they didn't want to play with fire.”

Mexico's attorney general has opened a treason investigation into whoever handed Zambada over to a foreign power, and said in a statement that U.S. authorities have not shared requested information about the plane since then.

This is not the first time a cross-border arrest has sparked controversy in Mexico. In 2020, U.S. authorities arrested former Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos as he arrived for a family vacation on drug charges. After he threatened to stop cooperating, the U.S. dropped the charges and released him to Mexico.

This time, authorities quickly quashed rumors of a breakup. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said the cooperation was unprecedented.

“The work we do here, we do it with full respect for the sovereignty of Mexico and we will continue to work as partners,” he said at a news conference Friday.

Salazar's statement sought to allay fears that Mexico's embarrassed intelligence services might refuse cross-border cooperation. Some officials also hope a restart will be possible when the country's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, takes office in October.

In general, it shows the poor state of security cooperation between the United States and Mexico, where there is not even a… similar version of events, said Cecilia Farfn-Móndéz, a researcher at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California. Depending on who is in the White House and… who is in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, it could potentially create a blank slate or not.

Mexican Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez, left, and Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lopez Obrador at a news conference discussing the arrests of Joaqun Guzmán and Ismael Zambada García Henry Romero/Reuters

The United States has arrested Sinaloa kingpin El Chapo, and its efforts to capture his other leaders have intensified as his children have risen through the ranks and steered the cartel toward manufacturing fentanyl, a deadly opioid that is the leading cause of death among young people in the United States.

Zambada is a particularly popular target for U.S. agents because he was known to be a key player in politics and finance, two of the most sensitive areas of cartel operations. U.S. prosecutors are seeking to try him in Brooklyn federal court, the same court where El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison.

It was one of several arrests in recent years targeting Sinaloa operatives. Ovidio Guzmán, another of Los Chapitos’ sons, known as Los Chapitos, was arrested in 2019 but quickly released by the Mexican government as cartel gunmen took control of the city of Culiacán in response. He was later rearrested and extradited to the United States last year.

Mexican organized crime groups operate with the protection, and sometimes in partnership, of local and federal authorities, new details of which have been revealed in recent cartel-related prosecutions in the United States.

In a letter he sent after his arrest, Zambada said a Sinaloa police officer had accompanied him to the meeting and that the state's governor, Rubén Rocha, was also expected. Rocha, who belongs to the ruling Morena party, has denied the reports and López Obrador and Sheinbaum have supported him.

Imagine all the things he knows or can tell, Farfn-Mndez said. I'm not talking about the narcotics stories per se, but about how actors at different levels of government have benefited and helped.

The focus on Sinaloa could help Mexico’s other major international drug trafficking group: the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which security experts say is behind much of the violence. The United States and Mexico say they are tracking both groups, but the former has had more success.

The Jalisco cartel is licking its lips because it will now have the whole table to itself, said Bentez Manaut. It is like eliminating Pepsi from the competition with Coca-Cola, the whole market is for Coca-Cola.

In Sinaloa, the situation has been tense for months and the army sent 200 special forces and paratroopers to Culiacán, the state capital, after the arrests.

For the United States, arresting and incarcerating cartel leaders can have a dramatic effect. But security experts and Mexican politicians often complain that arrests of major drug lords do little to curb the drug trade and result in the deaths of Mexicans, either in the process or by provoking conflict.

Zambada has called for calm during the apparent crisis between him and El Chapo's sons, but some say it may not last. It will be a cold war that could last months or years, said Eduardo Guerrero, a security expert at Lantia Consultores. It will be a very delicate balance.

Additional reporting by Joe Miller

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