El Mayo’s arrest and its implications
Zambada, who had evaded authorities for many years with out ever setting foot in jail, was famend for his shrewd operations, his expertise for corrupting officers, and his knack for negotiating with rivals.His elimination from the legal panorama may spark an inside battle for management of the globally-reaching cartel, as seen with earlier kingpin arrests or killings. This might unleash the violent tendencies of a youthful technology of Sinaloa traffickers, consultants say.
Mexican authorities response
The Mexican authorities deployed 200 particular forces members to Culiacan, Sinaloa state’s capital. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow on the Brookings Establishment, said there’s a “important potential for top escalation of violence throughout Mexico,” which is detrimental to each Mexico and the US. Moreover, the extra vicious Jalisco New Technology cartel could rise in prominence, Felbab-Brown warned. She described Zambada’s arrest as a “nice tactical success,” however strategically problematic.
Particulars of the arrest
Particulars of Zambada’s arrest stay scarce, however a US official, talking anonymously, revealed that Zambada was lured into flying to the US, the place he was arrested alongside Joaquín Guzmán López, son of the notorious Sinaloa chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who’s serving a life sentence within the US. A small aircraft departed Hermosillo, northern Mexico, on Thursday morning with solely an American pilot aboard, sure for the airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Mexican Safety Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez confirmed that whereas one particular person left Hermosillo, three arrived in New Mexico.
Flight monitoring and presidential response
Flight Conscious, a flight monitoring website, confirmed the aircraft stopped transmitting its elevation and pace for about half an hour over northern Mexico’s mountains earlier than resuming its course to the US.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a vocal critic of concentrating on drug kingpins, said Mexico was not concerned in or conscious of the US operation however thought-about the arrests an “advance.” Talking concerning the ongoing cartel battles alongside the Guatemala border, López Obrador downplayed the violence that compelled practically 600 Mexicans to hunt refuge in Guatemala this week. He attributed claims of out-of-control violence to his political adversaries. Nevertheless, these cartels have been already clashing in quite a few places all through Mexico earlier than Zambada’s arrest.
Inside Cartel dynamics
Frank Pérez, Zambada’s lawyer, informed The Related Press that his consumer “didn’t come to the US voluntarily.” José Reveles, an writer of a number of books on the cartels, recommended that the sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán could have performed a job in trapping Zambada. The Chapitos, or Little Chapos, type a faction inside the Sinaloa cartel typically at odds with Zambada regardless of their drug trafficking actions.
Guzmán López’s function and arrest
Guzmán López, additionally arrested on Thursday, “will not be his good friend nor his collaborator,” Reveles stated. Guzmán López, thought-about the least influential of the 4 Chapitos brothers, is among the many foremost exporters of artificial opioid fentanyl to the US. Now, two of the brothers are in US custody, following their chief of safety’s arrest by Mexican authorities in November.
Influence on drug trafficking operations
Reveles famous that Guzmán López has been accused of serving because the cartel’s hyperlink for importing precursor chemical compounds from Asia to make fentanyl and establishing labs for drug manufacturing.
Anne Milgram, US Drug Enforcement Administration chief, stated that Zambada’s arrest “strikes on the coronary heart of the cartel that’s accountable for almost all of medication, together with fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing People from coast to coast.”
Strategic Implications and Potential Cooperation
All through the present Mexican administration, ending September 30, Mexico has struggled to manage the nation’s violence. López Obrador’s concentrate on assuaging the basis causes of violence, reasonably than direct confrontation with the cartels, has strained relations with US authorities, notably the DEA. Felbab-Brown said this strategy has enabled the cartels to build up unprecedented energy in Mexico’s historical past.
Zambada may now present intensive details about the cartel’s operations if he chooses to cooperate. He faces expenses in a number of US federal courts. Felbab-Brown highlighted Zambada’s function because the cartel’s most expert agent of corruption and influential trafficker, managing huge corruption networks throughout varied Mexican administrations and geographic areas.
“A very powerful factor to look at is how a lot intelligence El Mayo will now present and the way a lot proof in trade for higher phrases,” she stated.
