Two high leaders of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel have been taken into custody by United States authorities to face fees for his or her function in main the group’s huge drug trafficking enterprise, the Division of Justice introduced Thursday.
Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of “El Chapo” Guzman, had been positioned below arrest in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, in response to Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland.
“Each males are dealing with a number of fees in america for main the Cartel’s legal operations, together with its lethal fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks,” Garland stated in an announcement.
“El Mayo and Guzman Lopez be a part of a rising listing of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Division is holding accountable in america,” Garland stated.
Zambada faces a number of federal indictments for his alleged function within the cartel and has been on the run from U.S. and Mexican regulation enforcement for years. His fellow co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and convicted in 2019 and sentenced to life in jail.
This combo of photos supplied by the U.S. Division of State present Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a historic chief of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, left, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of one other notorious cartel chief, after they had been arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Division stated Thursday, July 25, 2024.
U.S. Division of State through AP
“Right now, the FBI and DEA arrested two alleged cartel leaders who’ve eluded regulation enforcement for many years. Ismael Mario ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of El Chapo, will now face justice in america,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray stated in an announcement.
“Garcia and Guzman have allegedly overseen the trafficking of tens of hundreds of kilos of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the U.S. together with associated violence. These arrests are an instance of the FBI’s and our companions dedication to dismantling violent transnational legal organizations just like the Sinaloa Cartel,” Wray stated.
The circumstances behind Zambada and Guzman Lopez being taken into custody weren’t instantly clear as of Thursday night, nonetheless, the boys had been arrested in an operation that ended on U.S. soil.
“El Mayo” thought he was headed to examine a clandestine Mexican airfield, of which the Sinaloa cartel has many within the nation. As an alternative, in response to a Homeland Safety Investigations official, a senior rating member of the cartel tricked him and flew him to El Paso as an alternative.
Upon touchdown on the tarmac, brokers from HSI, together with the FBI arrested “El Mayo” and Guzman.
The HSI official tells ABC Information the operation had been deliberate “for months.”
They had been positioned in handcuffs by FBI brokers throughout an operation culminating at an airstrip not removed from El Paso.
“The arrest of Ismael Zambada García, higher often called ‘El Mayo,’ one of many alleged founders and leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, strikes on the coronary heart of the cartel that’s accountable for almost all of medication, together with fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing People from coast to coast. El Mayo is one in every of DEA’s most needed fugitives and he’s in custody tonight and can quickly face justice in a U.S. court docket of regulation,” stated Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram.
This body seize from video, supplied by the Mexican authorities, exhibits Ovidio Guzman Lopez is detained in Culiacan, Mexico, on Oct. 17, 2019.
CEPROPIE through AP, FILE
“Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one other alleged chief of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the son of ‘El Chapo,’ was additionally arrested at the moment — his arrest is one other monumental blow to the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2017, he and his brothers, the Chapitos, allegedly took management of the Sinaloa Cartel after El Chapo was extradited to america. DEA will proceed to hunt justice for any American life that’s misplaced and can work tirelessly to forestall extra pointless deaths and pursue these which are accountable,” Milgram stated.
The U.S. authorities had provided a $15 million reward for data resulting in the arrest and/or conviction of Zambada.
“Too a lot of our residents have misplaced their lives to the scourge of fentanyl,” President Joe Biden stated in an announcement Friday morning. “Too many households have been damaged and are struggling due to this harmful drug. My Administration will proceed doing every thing we are able to to carry lethal drug traffickers to account and to save lots of American lives.”
Guzman Lopez’s brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was charged final yr with two dozen others as a part of a crackdown concentrating on a worldwide drug trafficking community run by Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. In accordance with the fees, the cartel used precursor chemical substances shipped from China to gasoline the fentanyl disaster plaguing the U.S.
On this March 21, 2024, file picture, the seal for the Division of Justice is seen on the Division of Justice Constructing in Washington, D.C.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photographs, FILE
Ovidio Guzman Lopez had been needed by U.S. authorities since 2019 and was captured by Mexican armed forces in January 2023 in a small city simply outdoors town of Culiacán, the capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
He was captured in an in a single day raid that had been within the works for greater than six months, officers stated on the time. The arrest adopted an notorious incident in 2019, through which authorities briefly detained Guzman Lopez at a house in Culiacán, earlier than phrase unfold and closely armed gunmen flooded town. Huge shootouts occurred between cartel members and Mexican armed forces across the metropolis. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered Guzman Lopez launched as a way to keep away from extra bloodshed.
Their father is serving a life sentence within the U.S. after being convicted in 2019 of conducting a seamless legal enterprise, together with large-scale narcotics violations and a homicide conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracies, illegal use of a firearm and a cash laundering conspiracy.