El Mayo Zambada and El Chapo’s son: who are the drug lords arrested in the US, considered the most wanted in the world?

“They are looking for him everywhere and the man is not even hiding,” sings a song by Los Tucanes de Tijuana in honor of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

The 76-year-old drug lord, one of the three founders and until now leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on Thursday by US authorities.

Also in custody was Joaquín Guzmán López, the 38-year-old son of the notorious Chapo Guzmán, the other founder – sentenced to life imprisonment in the US – of one of the largest drug trafficking companies in the world.

This is an unprecedented blow to two of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world, accused of extortion, corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering.

And it is a blow to a symbol of the industry – El Mayo, also known as “The Man with the Hat” – who has generated admiration, stories and a handful of deaths and corruption cases after four decades in the business.

The corrido tumbado by Los Tucanes, which has 10 million views on YouTube, continues: “The law wants to stop him, the contras want to kill him, but no one has succeeded, the devil appears to them.”

But the myth of El Mayo, which probably remains a cultural myth, He will no longer be able to boast of his great feat: that “they had never been arrested.”

While El Chapo, also a founder of the Sinaloa cartel, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019, his son and longtime ally will now enter a trial that is likely to yield similar results.

The story of Mayo, the rise from low-level drug dealer to “boss of bosses”, as he is often called, is one of pragmatism, cunning and corruption.

After a short stint delivering furniture on the streets of Culiacán, Zambada began in the 1970s as a drug trafficker for the Guadalajara cartel, a pioneer in the industry trading opium, marijuana and, eventually, cocaine.

He then worked in the Juarez cartel, first as a mid-level manager and then as a leader, increasingly close to Amado Carrillo, the so-called “Lord of the Skies.” From there, it is believed that he created his network of contacts in Colombia, a country where he made 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..

And if there is one thing that sets him apart from the others, it is that he has always kept a low profile. There are hardly any images of him. It is reported that he has even had surgery to change his appearance. That he is 1.80 meters tall. That he is big and strong. That he has many women and children. Little else.

He spent decades moving back and forth between the mountains of northwestern Mexico. It was unusual for him to sleep two nights in a row in the same place.

One of his sons, Vicente Zambada Niebla, was arrested by 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 paid up to a million dollars in bribes a month. That his network of complicity included banks and governments. That he maintained contact with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Mayo Zambada became a legend because he was one of the drug traffickers most concerned with creating ties with the community.

He has been a patron of El Álamo, his native ranch, and other towns in the Sinaloa region, financing their arrangements, works and celebrations.

And if he was one of those with the least prominence and the most social roots, El Mayo was also the drug trafficker who trafficked the least, because his great contribution to the operation of the Sinaloa Cartel, more than the export of narcotics, was to create a commercial branch for money laundering managed by women in his family.

He is reported to have laundered billions of dollars. The US Treasury Department attributes to him ownership of major construction, dairy and service companies.

That is why he was the closest to Mexican politics, culture and authorities. That is also why he is the one who can provide the most information about the role of the legal world in the vast drug trafficking industry.

The unknown and opaque myth of Ismael Zambada –also known as “El Rey”, “El Grande” and “El MZ”– will now begin to be clarified.

As for Joaquín Guzmán López, arrested along with Mayo this Thursday, not many details are known about his life.

The 38-year-old man, known as El Güero, is the son of El Chapo and Griselda López Pérez, the drug lord’s second wife.

He is a member of The Chapitosa cell made up of Chapo Guzmán’s sons, including his brother Ovidio, who was extradited to the United States last January.

Some consider his role in the criminal organization to be more secondary than that of Ovidio. However, the US State Department claims that he performed “high-level command and control functions” in both the Los Chapitos group and the Sinaloa cartel.

U.S. authorities maintain that after Edgar’s death, Joaquin and Ovidio inherited much of the profits from narcotics sales and began investing large amounts of cash in the drug business. Purchase of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia.

The clan’s activities even extended to the Southern Cone, specifically to Argentina, from where they purchased huge quantities of ephedrine and organized the smuggling of the product to Mexico while they began to experiment with the production of methamphetamine, according to Washington.

In 2015 the detainee He was involved in the operation that allowed El Chapo to escape from the Altiplano Prison.

U.S. authorities also allege that Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán López run at least 11 laboratories that produce methamphetamine in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, from which approximately 1,360 to 2,270 kilograms of the drug are exported each month.

Since 2018, the now detained man has been the subject of an open judicial process in the United States, specifically, the District of Columbia for trafficking, distribution and marketing of narcotics.

According to local media, Joaquín and Ovidio are brothers of Griselda and Edgar Guzmán, who was allegedly killed by members of the Beltrán Leyva cartel.

El Chapo had 10 children with three women: Alejandrina Salazar, Griselda López and Emma Coronel.

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