How El Chapo’s son helped U.S. arrest fabled narco chief “El Mayo”

(Reuters) – As a propeller plane on Thursday whirred towards the U.S.-Mexico border to cross illegally, U.S. agents raced to meet it at a small municipal airport near El Paso, Texas, and arrest two men who were part of Mexican drug trafficking royalty.

The son of jailed former Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman planned to give himself up upon landing. The other passenger – legendary septuagenarian trafficker Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada – did not and was duped into getting on the plane by the younger man, according to two current and two former U.S. officials familiar with the situation.

Zambada’s arrest followed lengthy surrender talks between U.S. authorities and El Chapo’s son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the sources said. But many American officials had given up hope on Joaquin turning himself in, and were caught unaware when he sent a last-minute message that he would arrive with a kingpin U.S. authorities had been chasing for four decades.

“El Mayo was the cherry on top,” said one U.S. official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the arrests. “It wasn’t expected at all.”

Guzman Lopez had convinced Zambada to board the plane by telling him that they were flying to see real estate in northern Mexico, according to the two current and one former U.S. officials.

Reuters was the first news organization to report the arrests, ahead of a Department of Justice statement on Thursday evening that confirmed the two men had been detained in El Paso. The news agency spoke to current and former officials to piece together a detailed account of the operation.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the two agencies who carried out the operation, scrambled agents from their local El Paso offices and barely reached the airport by the time the private plane was landing, according to a fifth source, a U.S. official who declined to give further details on the arrests.

One worker at the Dona Ana County International Jetport, near El Paso, told Reuters he saw a Beechcraft King Air plane land on Thursday afternoon on the runway, where federal agents were already waiting.

“Two individuals got off the plane … and were calmly taken into custody,” said the man, who declined to share his name out of concern for his safety.

The unexpected arrest of El Mayo, in his late 70s, and the way he appears to have been betrayed by Guzman Lopez, who is about 38 years old, has jolted the Mexican drug trafficking world, triggering fears of a bloody fissure in the Sinaloa Cartel between the two families that control the group’s biggest power bases.

Zambada is accused of being one of the most consequential traffickers in Mexico’s history, having co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel with “El Chapo” Guzman, who was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.

Reuters could not determine why Guzman Lopez betrayed his father’s long-time partner, though the four current and former sources said it was likely due to his desire to obtain a more favourable plea bargain deal from U.S. authorities and help his brother, Ovidio, who was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2023.

U.S. authorities have made drug bosses key targets, frequently striking plea bargain deals with them in exchange for information that leads to the capture of other high-ranking cartel figures.

The back-channel communication between American officials and Guzman Lopez was carried out through lawyers, the first official said. Jeffrey Lichtman, who represents both Guzman brothers, declined to comment.

Zambada, who was in a wheelchair, pleaded not guilty on Friday in a Texas courtroom to drug charges, including continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics importation conspiracy and money laundering. His lawyer, Frank Perez, said Zambada did not come to the U.S. voluntarily.

Guzman Lopez is due to appear in court next week in Chicago, where he was first indicted on drugs charges around 6 years ago.

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