At 7:55 a.m., an American pilot took off from Hermosillo airport in the state of Sonora in northern Mexico. A little over two hours later, the plane landed at a small private airport near the border city of El Paso, Texas, with two more passengers. Both were arrested by federal agents upon landing on U.S. soil. They were Ismael Mario Zambada García, The Maymore than 30 years at the top of drug trafficking, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of Joaquin Guzman Loera, El Chapo. Beyond these details, the story of the mysterious arrest on Thursday of the two Sinaloa Cartel bosses, without a single shot being fired, is still a tale full of holes, suspicions and contradictions.
There is the theory of betrayal: the veteran Mayo would have fallen into a trap set by the son of his former compadre, who would have sold him in exchange for benefits for him and his family. There is the theory of surrender: old, sick and cornered, Zambada would have given in after having negotiated good conditions and reunited with his children, imprisoned on the other side of the border. And there is the official version of the United States: a great blow to the heart of the Sinaloa Cartel as a result of its relentless war against fentanyl.
The Mexican government has so far remained low-key, only acknowledging that it did not participate in the operation and providing little more than its own information that only the pilot left Hermosillo, without the drug lords. “We don’t know if it was a delivery or a capture,” said President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday, who will take power in the fall and who inherits from the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a delicate relationship with the U.S. special and intelligence agents operating in Mexican territory.
The White House has been more explicit about the aim of capitalising politically on the arrests in the middle of the election campaign. President Joe Biden welcomed the arrests in response to Republican accusations of allowing the flow of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that has caused hundreds of thousands of American deaths, and which they blame on the Sinaloa drug traffickers. In any case, no authority has officially given more details about the arrest. What has been repeated are the leaks to different media pointing to the theory of a treacherous ambush.
Citing sources from the Department of Homeland Security, the newspaper The Wall Street Journal has published that after months of negotiations with the FBI, El Chapo’s son would have finally agreed to sell Zambada. With the bait of checking some clandestine landing strips for drug distribution, the plane deviated to the other side of the border without the knowledge of the capo and he ended up handcuffed in Texas. Another version of the betrayal theory, published by The New York Timesis that the hook was some properties that would presumably be used for money laundering.
In his first court appearance in El Paso, Zambada was charged on Friday with five counts: trafficking in fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana, money laundering, kidnapping, use of firearms and conspiracy to kill. A heavy burden that could condemn the veteran drug lord, 76, to spend the rest of his life behind bars. The harshness against Zambada contrasts with the charges brought against Joaquín Guzmán, 38, who will only face trafficking in cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. Amid so much speculation, a clue runs through the case: if Guzmán pleads guilty in the next few days, the theory of the denunciation would be broadened and that his defense is working on an agreement with the Department of Justice.
Of the four sons of El Chapo, who is serving a life sentence in the US, Joaquín Guzmán López is the one who has kept a lower profile since his father’s downfall. Known as The Chapitosone of the factions of the Sinaloa mafia, the four sons of the drug lord are accused of federal drug trafficking crimes in several jurisdictions in the United States. But the authorities consider that the leaders with the most weight are Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo, the older brothers, in addition to Ovidio, the youngest, already arrested and extradited. Son of El Chapo’s second wife and nicknamed The GüeroJoaquín got his start in the criminal business by supervising methamphetamine laboratories in the mountains.
In another leak, this time to Los Angeles Timesan agent related to the operation said: “The old man has been deceived. It has been an epic caper, one of those that you see once in a lifetime.” Zambada appeared at the court hearing on Friday in a wheelchair. He only got up to hear the charges against him. A recent DEA report indicated that the boss was in poor health, questioning his leadership ability. Upon leaving the courts, Zambada’s lawyer did not speak of betrayal, but when questioned by the press he ruled out an agreed surrender: “I can confirm that he did not surrender voluntarily. He was brought against his will.”
In the absence of a definitive official version, in Mexico the supposed naivety of a veteran and experienced drug lord, who has managed to spend more than five decades trafficking, three of them at the top of the most powerful mafia, without ever setting foot in jail, is surprising. The fact that a boss of bosses, with his age and his ailments, flies in a small plane to supervise a landing strip or some properties is striking. Especially for someone who has spent half his life taking extreme precautions with discipline and austerity, sheltered most of the time in his hideouts in the Sinaloa mountains.
It is also striking that he specifically trusted Joaquín Guzmán, who is supposedly a member of a different faction to Zambada within the Sinaloa cartel. Since the third and final capture in January 2016 of El Chapo, who had founded the cartel with Zambada in the 1990s, internal power has been fractured. Up to four groups share the pie, in a relationship that is not always friendly. In recent years, operations against the Sinaloa mafia have been increasing, especially since the US justice system launched its crusade against fentanyl. Los Chapitos, and recently El Mayo, are in the crosshairs.
On the part of Los Chapitos, Ovidio Guzmán López was extradited to the United States last September, and Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, known as The NEET, considered one of the chief hitmen of the organization. Of El Mayo’s people, two of his sons are also imprisoned in the US. Vicente Zambada Niebla, Vicentilloand Ismael Zambada Imperial, The Fat Mayito. Like one of his brothers, Jesus Reynaldo, The kingZambada, who was instrumental in El Chapo’s life sentence by testifying against him in detail during the trial in New York.
All of these antecedents are also incentives to negotiate on the part of those who are not yet behind bars. In the case of El Mayo, he has always been considered the best politically connected capo, with links to high authorities inside and outside of Mexico. Along the same lines, The New York TimesThe report cites five different sources who claim that the drug lord has been negotiating with US federal agents for at least three years the conditions of his possible surrender. It also points out that, of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán was the one who had the most contacts with the US authorities since his father’s downfall.
This is the breeding ground that feeds both the thesis of betrayal and negotiated surrender. Two patterns repeated many times by mafia bosses in their ways of acting, a kind of decision for the lesser evil when fate presses. Negotiating perks – fewer years of prison, keeping property, money – even if it means selling out your partner and betraying the codes of loyalty of the underworld.
In the case of El Mayo, US authorities estimate his wealth after a lifetime of crime at at least $14 billion, both in cash and property from money laundering over the years. This wealth alone would be enough to place him among Bloomberg’s 200 richest people in the world.
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