It sounded like a story out of a narcotics thriller: One of Mexico’s biggest drug lords was lured onto a plane, flown across the border and introduced to U.S. federal agents by the son of his former partner in crime.
As unlikely as it may seem, that’s exactly what appeared to have happened Thursday night, when a Beechcraft King Air turboprop landed at a small municipal airport outside El Paso, Texas, and out walked one of Mexico’s most wanted men: Ismael Zambada García, a founder of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel.
Zambada García, known as El Mayo, had eluded capture by Mexican and U.S. authorities for decades, living a life of luxurious simplicity in the mountains of Sinaloa, despite the $15 million bounty on his head.
But ultimately, U.S. officials say, he was betrayed by an unlikely foe: the son of his closest criminal ally, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, who is currently serving a life sentence in a U.S. federal prison.
According to U.S. authorities, El Chapo’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, tricked Zambada García into boarding the plane, telling him they were going to visit real estate in northern Mexico. The old man had no idea that he was actually headed to Texas, where he would be handed over to U.S. agents who had long been tracking him.
The dramatic cross-border escape comes after years of discreet contact between Guzmán López and a small team of U.S. law enforcement agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security who have been doggedly pursuing him, his three brothers and Zambada García following Guzmán Loera’s historic conviction for drug conspiracy five years ago.
It’s not yet clear to what extent law enforcement shaped or directed Thursday’s events, but they knew Zambada García was on the plane as it approached the U.S. border, according to two people familiar with the matter.
And in the end, whatever role they played, the U.S. agents got what they wanted: They apprehended a critically important criminal target who had eluded capture and who they had long doubted Mexican authorities could — or would — obtain for them.
Almost immediately, the two arrests triggered a torrent of questions in Mexico, where the government said it had no role and knew nothing until the U.S. Embassy called to say that Zambada García and Guzmán López were in custody.
Asked by reporters Friday morning, Mexico’s security secretary, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, said the government did not know whether the arrest was part of a deal with U.S. prosecutors.
“That’s part of the investigation, whether it’s a capture or a surrender,” Rodriguez said. “That’s part of what the U.S. government will have to explain.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said his administration expects the U.S. government to provide a “complete report” on how the detentions took place, including whether there was a prior agreement with Zambada García or Guzmán López.
“There is no mistrust,” he added. “What we have always asked for is respect.”
No formal extradition request has been filed against Zambada García, who has been indicted for more than two decades in the United States for drug trafficking conspiracy in several states. And although U.S. authorities have failed to arrest him in Mexico, even with the help of elite Mexican Navy troops, several extradition cases have been narrowly avoided in recent years.
By flying Zambada García onto the plane, Guzmán López offered the United States the reward it had long coveted. And in doing so, he may have also increased his own chances of getting a favorable deal for himself and his closest brother, Ovidio Guzmán López, who was already in federal custody in the United States.
Zambada Garcia waived an in-person appearance Friday at a hearing in federal district court in El Paso, pleading not guilty to drug conspiracy charges through an attorney. He was remanded in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Guzmán López is scheduled to appear Tuesday for his first hearing in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
U.S. law enforcement officials have been in discreet contact with Guzmán López for some time, a dialogue that intensified somewhat after Ovidio was extradited to stand trial in Chicago last September, according to three people familiar with the situation.
While it’s not yet clear how much that outreach impacted his decision to frame Zambada García, handing over an award like El Mayo to U.S. prosecutors could only increase his chances of getting friendly terms in any future plea deal.
U.S. officials had also been quietly negotiating for at least three years with Zambada García about his own potential surrender, though those talks ultimately came to nothing.
On Friday, Rodriguez suggested that authorities believed a private Cessna plane had flown the two crime bosses out of the country, publicly identifying the pilot as a U.S. citizen named Larry Curtis Parker.
She said the plane took off around 8 a.m. Thursday. But a U.S. official familiar with the matter said the plane that took the two men out of Hermosillo was a Beechcraft that left the airport around 2 p.m.
Reached by phone Friday afternoon, a man who identified himself as Parker said Mexican authorities were wrong to identify him as the pilot who flew the two men across the border. Parker acknowledged flying a small Cessna and said he saw a Beechcraft parked near his own plane at the Hermosillo airport Thursday.
He said he had nothing to do with the cartels. “I’m just a clean, hard-working American,” Parker said.
