The leader and co-founder of the famous Mexican group Sinaloa Posterwith a son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmanwere arrested Thursday by the FBI, federal authorities announced.
The Justice Department confirmed that Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were arrested in El Paso, Texas. A senior official familiar with the arrest told CBS News that Zambada was taken into FBI custody without incident along the U.S. border.
“The Department of Justice has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
US State Department via AP
Zambada was indicted in Brooklyn in February on fentanyl trafficking charges, among other counts, and both men face multiple charges in the United States for directing the cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking rings.
Zambada was arrested after wandering the United States for many years. In 2016, the State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, and the DEA’s profile of the crime boss indicated the reward could be as high as $15 million.
The Sinaloa Cartel, based in Tijuana, is one of the most powerful and violent criminal organizations in Mexico. Zambada founded the cartel with “The Chapo”, was capture Zambada was arrested in 2016 and is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in the United States after being convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering. Zambada took control of the cartel after El Chapo’s arrest.
Last year, U.S. federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges against 28 Sinaloa members and associates, including the three sons of Guzman — accusing them of orchestrating a transnational fentanyl trafficking operation in the United States. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Justice Department officials have accused the defendants of causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives fentanyl.
— Robert Legare and Andres Triay contributed to this report.
