Ismael Zambada García, better known as ‘El Mayo’ Zambada and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, is currently detained by U.S. authorities.
According to reports from several media outlets, including Semanario Zeta, Reuters, and Televisa, the top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, the world’s most powerful drug trafficking organization, has surrendered and is in custody in Texas.
Along with Mayo Zambada, Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias El Chapo Guzmán, has also reportedly surrendered.
El Mayo Zambada is 76 years old and known to have diabetes. Throughout his criminal career, he has never been arrested by the authorities.
Who is Ismael el Mayo Zambada?
El Mayo Zambada is one of the last drug traffickers from the old guard, the generation that emerged from the so-called Guadalajara Cartel, which was led by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, and Rafael Caro Quintero.
Zambada García was born on January 7, 1948, in Sinaloa. Unlike other major criminal leaders such as Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán or Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, Mayo Zambada has never been arrested.
Together with Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, alias ‘El Azul’, Mayo has been one of the most difficult drug trafficking leaders for authorities to track down.
Like ‘El Azul’, Ismael Zambada has preferred to maintain a low profile.
In 2010, Mayo Zambada gave an interview to journalist Julio Scherer, in which he confessed that he almost never slept in the same place and kept himself safe in the mountains.
“The wilderness is my home, my family, my protection, my land, the water I drink. The land is always good, the sky is not,” Mayo told the founder of Proceso magazine.
He also confessed his “panic” about being imprisoned.
Many speculations surround Mayo Zambada: that he is sick, that he has diabetes, and even that he is already dead. In the interview he gave to Scherer, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel acknowledged that many lies have been told about him. One of them is that he supposedly orchestrated El Chapo Guzmán’s escape from Puente Grande.
“El Chapo Guzmán and I are friends, compadres, and we talk on the phone frequently. But that story never happened. It’s another lie pinned on me. Like the invention that I was planning an attack on the president of the Republic. I would never think of such a thing.”
Currently, Mayo is 69 years old, and three of his ten children are in prison.
Vicente Zambada Niebla, ‘El Vicentillo’, was arrested in 2009 by the Mexican Army and extradited to the United States in 2010.
In November 2013, Serafín Zambada was captured, and a year later, Ismael Zambada Imperial, alias ‘El Mayito Gordo’, was also arrested; both are detained in the United States.
Unlike their father, who has always maintained a low profile throughout his criminal career, both Serafín and ‘El Mayito Gordo’ are part of the generation of narco juniors and ‘buchones’ who like to flaunt their luxuries and excesses on social media.
