US arrests Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ and son of ‘El Chapo’

US arrests Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ and son of ‘El Chapo’: According to a US law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, an alleged Mexican drug kingpin who evaded authorities for decades and is suspected of flooding the United States with deadly fentanyl is currently in custody in the United States. He was apparently lured across the border by federal agents along with another alleged leader of his cartel who was assisting with his capture.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 76, the supposed fellow benefactor and head of the strong Sinaloa cartel, was captured in El Paso, Texas, Thursday, Head legal officer Merrick Festoon said in an explanation.

According to him, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 38, another alleged leader of the cartel, was also detained. Guzman is the son of the notorious co-founder of the cartel and former boss, 69-year-old Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is currently serving a life sentence in a US prison for his multiple charges five years ago.

Zambada loaded onto a plane with Guzman Lopez, accepting they were reviewing property in Mexico close to the US line, the policing said.

According to the official, Zambada was unaware that Guzman Lopez was assisting with his capture and that US investigators had taken advantage of a rift in the Sinaloa cartel.

In one of the biggest victories for US law enforcement against the cartels, the plane instead landed close to El Paso, and FBI agents arrested both men.

A worker at the Santa Teresa airport near El Paso told Reuters that while federal agents were waiting, “Two individuals got off the plane… and were calmly taken into custody.” The man, who declined to provide his name out of concern for his safety, stated, “It seemed like a pretty calm, arranged thing.”

Rosa Icela Rodriguez, Mexico’s secretary of security, stated on Friday that the US Embassy in Mexico informed Mexican officials of the arrests via phone call on Thursday afternoon.

During President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s daily news conference, Rodriguez stated, “The Mexican government did not participate in this detention or surrender,” adding that Mexico is awaiting additional information from the US government.

In view of data from Mexico’s Public Migration Foundation, Rodriguez said, it is accepted the men went in a Cessna 205 from Hermosillo, Mexico, to the St Nick Teresa air terminal in Texas.

Zambada has four dynamic capture warrants in Mexico for coordinated wrongdoing and other unlawful demonstrations, Rodriquez said.

In the US, both Zambada and Guzman Lopez face a few charges for supposedly driving the cartel’s criminal tasks, including its “lethal fentanyl fabricating and dealing organizations,” Wreath said.

“The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” Garland stated. “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced.”

According to the US State Department, Zambada was indicted by a northern Illinois grand jury in 2009 on a number of different US criminal charges.

CNN has learned that a Justice Department aircraft frequently used for extraditions left El Paso and landed at a Chicago-area airport early on Friday, though his whereabouts are unknown.

In 2021, the reward for information leading to Zambada’s arrest was increased to $15 million. US authorities had been looking for his capture for years.

US arrests Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ and son of ‘El Chapo‘: “The Zambada Garcia faction of the Sinaloa Cartel has been led by Ismael Mario Zambada Garcia for a considerable amount of time. According to the US State Department, Zambada Garcia “is unique in that he has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail.”

FBI Chief Christopher Wray said Zambada and Guzman Lopez had “evaded policing many years” and “will presently confront equity in the US.”

Wray went on to say that the pair were allegedly in charge of trafficking “tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the US along with related violence.”

Drug Implementation Organization boss Anne Milgram said the pair’s captures strike “at the core of the cartel that is liable for most of medications, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from one coast to another.”

One of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel is named after the Mexican state where it was formed in the late 1980s. It makes billions of dollars a year by importing drugs into the United States and other countries.

Guzman, better known as “El Chapo,” was extradited to Mexico in 1993 after being arrested in Guatemala on drug and homicide charges. However, in 2001, he reportedly bribed prison guards to allow him to escape in a laundry truck. In 2014, he was arrested once more, but this time he got away through a tunnel.