Gustavo Castillo García
La Jornada newspaper
Friday, July 25, 2025, p. 4
One year after Ismael May Zambada García –Cabecilla of one of the factions of the Sinaloa Cartel – was allegedly transferred and illegally delivered to United States authorities by Joaquín Guzmán López, son of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, the war without barracks that exploded between features of the cartel himself has left a balance of 1,538 intelligence homicides, more than one thousand 100 missing people and 5,784 reports of stolen vehicles, only between October 2024 and June of this year, according to statistics of the Attorney General’s Office of Sinaloa.
The confrontation between the factions known as The Mayiza and The Chapitos either The minors forced the deployment of more than 11 thousand personnel of the Mexican Army and the Secretariat of the Navy, with the aim of containing violence, arresting members of both criminal groups, dismantling clandestine laboratories of synthetic drugs and ensuring weapons and narcotics.
From October 1, 2024 to July 20, the Federal Security Cabinet reported in Sinaloa the arrest of 1,487 alleged members of organized crime, the assurance of more than 3 thousand firearms, the destruction of almost 100 clandestine laboratories and the seizure of 53 thousand 602 kilograms of drugs. The actions were mainly concentrated in the municipalities of Culiacán, Mazatlan, San Ignacio, Concordia, Elota, Navolato and Cosalá.
Weakening of criminal structures
Sources of the Security Cabinet itself indicated that these actions have weakened the operational and financial structures of both the group headed by Ismael Zambada Sicairos, The skinny Mayitoas led by Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, nicknamed El Chapito.
On the other hand, operations carried out by the Secretariat of the Navy have resulted in the arrest of 1,72 people and the assurance of 655 firearms, 2,587 loaders, 130 thousand 131 cartridges, 947 grenades and artisanal explosive artifacts, as well as 777 vehicles. 1,622 million pesos in cash have also been confiscated, one thousand kilos of fentanil Narcolaborios124 marijuana and 329 poppy seedlings.
On July 20, during the presentation of the results of this strategy in Culiacán, the head of the Secretariat of Citizen Security and Protection (SSPC), Omar García Harfuch, said: Definitely, criminal organizations have been diminished
.
Betrayal a May
On July 25, 2024, Ismael May Zambada went to Rancho Huertas del Pedregal – where parties were commonly held – to a meeting in which, according to reports, the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya; the former rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda and Joaquín Guzmán López, The Güero Moreno.
According to investigations from the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), Cuén Ojeda was killed in the place. His body was subsequently abandoned in a gas station, simulating an assault attempt. In that same place, May Zambada would have been submitted, transferred in the box of a truck to an airfield located 20 kilometers from the ranch, climbed to an aircraft and taken to the Doña Ana airport, in New Mexico, United States, where it was arrested by FBI agents. That same day, Joaquín Guzmán López gave himself to the US authorities.
Governor Rocha Moya denied any link with drug trafficking and said that on July 25, 2024 he was not in the entity.
Currently, Ismael Zambada García is imprisoned in New York, where he faces 17 charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering and illegal carrying of firearms. On August 25, a hearing will be held in which a cooperation agreement with the US authorities could be announced. In case of being convicted, he would face a life sentence. Among the witnesses they may declare against them are Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán.
