Two Sinaloa Cartel Leaders Arrested, a ‘Severe Blow’ to Deadly Drug Trafficking

After a sting operation, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of the famous drug lord “El Chapo” helped set a trap for “El Mayo”, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel. The US Department of Justice confirmed the arrests.

It’s a “very hard blow” brought to one of the drug trafficking networks “the deadliest in the world”particularly because of the ravages of fentanyl. Two leaders of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, with international ramifications, were arrested on the night of Thursday 25 to Friday 26 July by the United States Department of Justice. These two bosses of the powerful cartel were picked up as their private plane landed in Texas, a US state bordering Mexico, following a particularly audacious infiltration operation, the American press revealed.

According to the New York TimesJoaquin Guzman Lopez, son of the famous drug lord “El Chapo”, thirty years old, convinced Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias “El Mayo”, co-founder of the cartel, to take a plane supposedly bound for southern Mexico. The plane actually headed north and landed in El Paso, in the United States, according to the American daily. The son of “El Chapo” lured “El Mayo” on the plane “under false pretenses”, revealed US officials to New York TimesJoaquin Guzman Lopez surrendered, while “El Mayo”, 76, was arrested, according to Washington’s version.

Before a federal judge in Texas on Friday, “El Mayo” pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering, according to court documents. His lawyer told the Los Angeles Times that he had not “not voluntarily surrendered”. Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has demanded from his big American neighbour a “full report”, of “respect and “transparency” on this infiltration operation.

For his part, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, welcomed in a statement on Friday that “two of the most prominent leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s deadliest organizations,” were captured because “Too many of our fellow citizens are dying because of the scourge of fentanyl”. This powerful synthetic opiate, which is wreaking havoc in the United States, is “the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced”insisted the American Minister of Justice, Merrick Garland.