BBC“They look for him everywhere and the man is not even hidden” go the lyrics to a song by Los Tucanes de Tijuana, in honour of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The infamous 76-year-old drug trafficker, one of the three founders and, until now, leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on Thursday by the US authorities, He later appeared in court where he pleaded not guilty.
Also in custody is Joaquín Guzmán López, the 38-year-old son of the cartel’s other founder, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – who has been serving a life sentence in the US since 2019.
Citing Mexican and US officials, the Wall Street Journal reports that Zambada was tricked into boarding the plane by a high-ranking Sinaloa member following a months-long operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI.
It is an unprecedented blow to two of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world, accused of extortion, corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering.
El Mayo, also known as “The Man with the Hat”, has attracted admiration and notoriety over five decades in the business.
Los Tucanes’ song, which has 10 million views on YouTube, continues: “The law wants to stop him, the enemies want to kill him, but no one has succeeded – the devil appears to them.”
From trafficker to leader
Zambada’s rise from common trafficker to “capo de capos” (boss of bosses), as he is often called, is a story of pragmatism, cunning and corruption.
After a short stint as a furniture deliveryman on the streets of Culiacán, a city in northwestern Mexico, Zambada began his underworld career as a trafficker in the 1970s.
He first worked for the Guadalajara cartel, a pioneer in the industry, which traded opium, marijuana and, eventually, cocaine.
He then worked in the Juárez cartel, first as a middle manager and then as a leader, becoming increasingly close to Amado Carrillo, the so-called “Lord of the Skies”.
From there, it is believed that he created a network of contacts in Colombia, the country where he went on to make great friends and cocaine-producing partners.
As other bosses died or fell, Zambada became more powerful. He rarely had a problem with betraying an ally.
But if anything differentiates him from other drug lords, it is that he always kept a low profile. There are almost no images of him.
It has been reported that he has had surgeries to change his appearance. That he is 1.8m tall. That he is big and strong. That he has many wives and children. But little more.
$1m bribe budget
One of El Mayo’s sons, Vicente Zambada Niebla, was detained by the Mexican authorities in 2009. His prison diary was later released.
In it, and in the testimony he gave to the US authorities, Zambada junior said that his father budgeted $1m per month for bribes, and that his network of complicity included banks and governments.
El Mayo has also reportedly been one of the drug traffickers most concerned about generating a bond with his community.
He has been a patron of El Álamo, his native ranchería, and other towns in the Sinaloa region, financing their works and celebrations.
One of El Chapo’s heirs
Getty ImagesLittle is known about Joaquín Guzmán López, who was detained alongside Zambada on Thursday.
The 38-year-old man, known as El Güero, is the son of El Chapo and Griselda López Pérez, the drug trafficker’s second wife.
El Chapo had 10 children with three women: Alejandrina Salazar, Griselda López and Emma Coronel.
Joaquín is a member of Los Chapitos, a cell made up of El Chapo’s children, including Joaquín’s brother Ovidio, who was extradited to the United States in September last year, following his arrest in Mexico in January 2023.
Some consider Joaquín’s role in the criminal organisation secondary to Ovidio’s. However, the US State Department states that Joaquín performed “high-level command and control functions” in both the Los Chapitos group and the Sinaloa cartel.
US authorities maintain that after the death of Chapo’s older son Edgar, Joaquín and Ovidio inherited much of the profits from narcotics sales and began investing large amounts of cash in purchasing marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia.
According to a former associates of El Chapo, Joaquín and Ovidio were also involved in helping the drug lord escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico in 2015 – his second prison escape after charges related to murder and drug trafficking in 1993.
US authorities also maintain that Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán López run at least 11 laboratories that produce methamphetamine in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
Joaquín was first indicted on federal drug trafficking charges in 2018 in the US.