Mexican cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested in Texas for spearheading fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, according to the Department of Justice.
El Mayo is the alleged ringleader of a notorious drug trafficking ring that funnels fentanyl into the United States. His arrest in the Justice Department’s sting operation, alongside fellow gang leader Joaquin Guzman Lopez, comes as the DOJ states that fentanyl is the “deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced.” Fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. surged in 2016, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have died because of the drug over the past five years.
The DOJ announced it had arrested the two Sinaloa cartel leaders in El Paso, Texas, in a press release on Thursday.
“The Justice Department 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. “Ismael Zambada Garcia, or ‘El Mayo,’ cofounder of the Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other cofounder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas.”
Lopez convinced El Mayo to get on a private plane and told him they were going south in Mexico, but instead, the plane went north into El Paso, where agents were waiting for the two leaders, according to a source speaking with Fox News.
Lopez reportedly turned on El Mayo because he was upset with the leader over the 2016 capture of Lopez’s father, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
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The Sinaloa cartel is one of the most powerful criminal gangs in Mexico.
El Mayo’s capture follows the Drug Enforcement Administration crackdown on his criminal group earlier this year. In April, the DEA dealt a major blow to the Sinaloa cartel when it arrested 15 gang members and seized enough fentanyl to manufacture 10 million fatal doses.
