In the interview, he described living in fear of getting caught and revealed that at least four times the military had gotten close enough to capture him. Zambada headed the Sinaloa Cartel in partnership with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, until 2016 when El Chapo was captured. 26 - Aug. 1, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. The illicit drugs are usually distributed through crossing points located along Mexico’s border. A wanted man since 1998, Zambada forged ahead under El Chapo until the drug lord’s 2016 arrest — his third capture after he’d escaped from prison a second time. A research paper into Mexican criminal and terrorist activity by the Library of Congress’s Federal Research Division described Zambada as a former farmer with “extensive agricultural and botanical knowledge.” The drug lord is said to be great at building alliances with other cartels as well as Colombian suppliers. This consolidation was anything but voluntary. Powered by.

Members of the cartel smuggle the cocaine to distribution cells in Arizona, California, Illinois, and New York.[14]. The Sinaloa Cartel exports and distributes wholesale amounts of methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl to the U.S. each year, its operations running like clockwork. “In the late 1990s, Zambada-García emerged as one of the strongest drug traffickers in Mexico, capable of transporting multi-ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana and multi-kilogram quantities of heroin,” the State Department said. After serving 27 years of his sentence, he was later re-sentenced to 37 years in prison in 2017 for the murder of a DEA agent. Zambada previously shared control of the Sinaloa cartel with infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman until the latter was arrested in 2016. But during his trial in 2018, Guzmán’s attorneys claimed that he was the victim of a conspiracy by the cartel’s true leader — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García. Of course, controlling territory and amassing larger pieces of the proverbial pie required a ruthless indifference toward violence — which Zambada didn’t lack. Kathleen Lombardo’s Death: Where Is the Case Today. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why El Mayo has evaded capture for so long is that he keeps a very low profile.

Zambada has historically worked closely with the Juárez Cartel and the Carrillo Fuentes family, while maintaining independent ties to Colombian cocaine suppliers. The Little-Known Story Of Ismael Zambada García, The Shadowy Drug Lord Known As ‘El Mayo’. He’s only ever done one interview in 2010 with the Mexican magazine Proceso. When drug lord Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was arrested in 1989, his organization split into two opposing factions: the Tijuana Cartel whose leadership was inherited by his nephews and heirs, the Arellano Félix brothers; and the Sinaloa Cartel whose leadership fell to former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, Adrián Gómez González, Ismael Zambada García, Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, and Joaquín Guzmán Loera (El Chapo).
It also split the once mighty cartel into multiple contingents, perhaps the most infamous one being the Sinaloa Cartel.

Questions have not only remained, but mounted: Who is Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada?

Zambada has now possibly assumed full command of the Sinaloa Cartel. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García is Guzmán's longtime partner and the current leader of the cartel, now that Guzmán himself is on trial in the United States. FlickrMiguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was serving his 37 years in the Altiplano maximum-security prison, but was transferred to a medium-security facility in 2014 due to his declining health. “I have been up into those mountains and it’s very difficult to capture anybody,” Vigil said. "Top drug cartel suspect arrested in Mexico", "Mexico captures high-level cartel member", https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/06/24/va-a-caer-antes-que-muera-de-viejo-la-advertencia-de-mike-vigil-a-caro-quintero-el-narco-de-narcos/, "Vicente Zambada Niebla se declara culpable por narcotráfico en EU", "Quedó en libertad en Estados Unidos Serafín Zambada, hijo del capo narco "Mayo" Zambada", "Cinco décadas sin ser atrapado: así es 'el Mayo' Zambada, líder del Cártel de Sinaloa", "Los lujos que exhibía el hijo de El Mayo - Univision", "Muere electrocutado yerno de 'El Mayo' Zambada", Learn how and when to remove this template message, Most Wanted Fugitive: Ismael Zambada Garcia, Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars, El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, Manhunt of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán (2001–2014), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ismael_%22El_Mayo%22_Zambada&oldid=983564679, Fugitives wanted on organised crime charges, People sanctioned under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia external links cleanup from April 2016, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 14 October 2020, at 23:30. Javier Valdez, the founder of the Sinaloan newspaper Riodoce, said Zambada “controls the Sinaloan police.”. Zambada operates primarily in the States of Sinaloa and Durango, but exerts influence along a large portion of Mexico's Pacific coast, as well as in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Sonora, Monterrey and Nuevo Leon. Consequently, the Sinaloa Cartel took advantage of its rival’s weakness and pushed ahead with full force to dominate its territories. The U.S. government eventually offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Zambada’s arrest. Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was serving his 37 years in the Altiplano maximum-security prison, but was transferred to a medium-security facility in 2014 due to his declining health. Alejandro Sicairos, an editor of the local magazine Espejo, described the situation as such: “It’s terror. Inside The Sinking Of The USS Indianapolis That Ended In A Feeding Frenzy For Sharks, This Week In History News, Jul. Ismael Zambada García (born 1 January 1948)[1] is a Mexican suspected drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate based in Sinaloa, Mexico. Ismael Zambada García, né le 1er janvier 1948, est un narcotrafiquant mexicain. But in the 2000s, Mexican President Felipe Calderón primarily targeted another organization — the Tijuana Cartel. [19] However, the effort to recruit the Caro Quintero brothers faltered as Zambada's health declined and El Chapo's sons, who were less willing to grant them leadership, gained more influence.

“I know the foliage, the streams, the rocks, everything. This includes trucks, submarines, and aerial transportation, as well as tunnel systems. I believe that the Chapitos have the advantage because they are much younger than [Zambada], who is 72 years old. As a result, the Tijuana Cartel largely crumbled over the last decade — leaving the Sinaloa Cartel at the top of the proverbial mountain, worth an estimated $20 billion. The word for what is happening in Sinaloa is generalized terror. Where is he now?
U.S. Attorney’s OfficeSinaloa Cartel members, with El Mayo at the top. This hasn’t been the usual kind of shootout. “Even though he’s only had maybe an elementary-school education, he’s received a Harvard-level education from some of the most prolific, knowledgeable, and astute drug lords that Mexico has ever had.”. At one point, the cartel controlled almost all of the drug trafficking between Mexico and the United States. “I fled to the hills,” Zambada said. In an interview with Infobae, former DEA director Mike Vigil mentioned that Zambada is “old and sick with diabetes.”. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has dangled a $5 million reward in front of anyone willing to provide information that leads to Zambada’s capture. The lowly farmer began dealing drugs when he was 16 years old. As the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman was one of the most famous drug lords in the world.

Wikimedia CommonsIsmael “El Mayo” Zambada García remains at large to this day.

After receipt of the cocaine, the Sinaloa cartel uses a variety of methods, including airplanes, trucks, cars, boats, and tunnels to transport the cocaine to the United States. An article in the Mazatlan Post in March 2020 said that Zambada may have lost control of the Sinaloa cartel to the sons of El Chapo after months of internal struggle. Before he assumed leadership of the entire cartel, he served as the logistical coordinator for its Zambada-García faction, which has overseen the trafficking of cocaine and heroin into Chicago and other US cities by train, ship, jet, or narco-submarine. Where is he today?

Though Mexico’s attorney general’s office indicted him in 1998 and the FBI indicted him in 2003 for his drug trafficking crimes, Zambada simply disappeared out of sight.

Once the items are securely brought to the United States, the distribution centers take the next step from there.

A new series was added to Netflix on August 5, World’s Most Wanted, a true crime look at the world’s most notorious criminal fugitives. The outlet wrote that in an interview with Proceso, he said, “I don’t know if I’d have the courage to kill myself. Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García remains at large to this day. Before he assumed leadership of the entire cartel, he served as the logistical coordinator for its Zambada-García faction, which has overseen the trafficking of cocaine and heroin into Chicago and other US cities by train, ship, jet, or narco-submarine. [6], The former farmer turned drug lord began his criminal career by smuggling as little as a few kilograms of drugs at a time; however, it was only to gain a foothold before he went about increasing his gang's production of heroin and marijuana while also solidifying his position as a trafficker of Colombian cocaine. According to the U.S. State Department, he was a key member of the brutal Amado Carrillo-Fuentes Organization, or Juarez Cartel. “‘Mayo’ Zambada is one of the most astute drug traffickers that Mexico has ever spawned.”. He remains at large to this day. In 2003, Zambada was charged by the FBI along with many other high-ranking members of the Sinaloa cartel following a lengthy investigation into their activities.