A U.S. law enforcement official says a powerful Mexican drug cartel leader who has eluded authorities for decades was duped into flying into the U.S., where he was arrested in Texas alongside a son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The official said Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada got onto an airplane to the U.S. believing he was going somewhere else.
This combo of images provided by the U.S. Department of State show Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a historic leader of Mexico ’s Sinaloa cartel, left, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of another infamous cartel leader, after they were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, July 25, 2024. This image provided by the U.S. Department of State shows Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a historic leader of Mexico ’s Sinaloa cartel.
Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said the plane took off with only the pilot from the airport in Hermosillo, Mexico. The flight tracking service Flight Aware showed the plane stopped transmitting its altitude and speed for about 30 minutes while it was over the mountains of northern Mexico before resuming its course to the U.S. border., including in New York and California.
In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured. Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.
Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with “El Chapo” Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.
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