DEEP DIVE — Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, a co-founder and leader of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa Cartel, has entered a not guilty plea to 17 drug trafficking charges, following in the footsteps of Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of the cartel’s founder, and setting the stage for a high-profile legal battle this fall hat could reveal the depths of cartel operations. Prosecutors and U.S. officials also hope that battle at least puts a dent in the deadly, multi-billion-dollar traffic in fentanyl, a drug that has been blamed for the deaths of more than one million Americans.
Lopez, 38, was arrested in late July, a law enforcement coup that drew global attention given that his father is Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the Sinaloa co-founder who until his latest capture in 2016 (he had escaped at least twice before) was considered one of the world’s most dangerous criminals.
But experts say the more important figure seized in the July operation was the 76-year-old Zambada, who was first indicted by U.S. authorities in 2009, with a $15 million bounty on his head. Zambada is believed to have been in full command of the group since El Chapo’s arrest, and therefore at the helm as the fentanyl traffic skyrocketed.
While the circumstances surrounding the arrests remain unclear – including whether Zambada was “violently kidnapped” by his business partner and forced onto the U.S.-bound plane, as some have reported – the questions now involve the potential impact: can these high-profile arrests curb the deadly flow of illicit drugs into the United States?
The reach and power of the Sinaloa Cartel
The Sinaloa Cartel is widely believed to be among the world’s most formidable criminal enterprises, responsible for smuggling huge quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and – the relative newcomer in this group – the deadly opioid fentanyl into the United States.
Founded in the late 1980s by Zambada and El Chapo, who is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado “supermax” prison, the Sinaloa group has been blamed for drug trafficking and violence that has wracked Mexico for decades. A 2022 Congressional Research Service report estimated that by 2012, “Sinaloa had grown to control 40%-60% of Mexico’s drug trade and had annual earnings estimated to be as high as $3 billion.”
In recent years, the cartel has broadened its global footprint, from Europe and the Middle East to Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and diversified its work to include many legal business sectors, including logging, mining, water distribution, construction, and entertainment.
Michael Vigil, the former Chief of International Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told The Cipher Brief that the Sinaloa cartel “has grown exponentially” under Zambada’s leadership, even venturing into Mexico’s $3.5 billion avocado industry and the trafficking of migrants en route to the U.S.
“The theft of lumber, the theft of petroleum, and the fishing industry. But they are also making billions of dollars in terms of the migrants that come through Mexico,” Vigil said. “And the Sinaloa Cartel right now operates in six of the seven continents around the world.”
The scourge of fentanyl
For all its operations – drug-related and otherwise – it is the fentanyl trade that has boomed lately, both in terms of dollar levels and its deadly results.
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said after the July arrests. Garland and other officials have called the capture of Zambada and Lopez a major step in the war on fentanyl trafficking.
The fentanyl traffic has led to a catastrophic public health crisis in the U.S. Since 1999, more than one million overdose deaths have been linked to the drug, and the annual death toll – 74,702 in 2023 – is far higher now than it was then. Today fentanyl overdose ranks as the primary cause of death among Americans aged between 18 and 45.
The Sinaloa-led fentanyl business got a major boost beginning in 2012, with a surge in shipments of precursor chemicals for synthetic opioids from China to cartel operatives in Mexico.
“The Sinaloa organization has been tied to the illicit production and trafficking of fentanyl that has had tremendous human costs in the U.S.,” Cecilia Farfan Mendez, a drug policy expert at the U.C. Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), told The Cipher Brief. “From the perspective of the U.S. government, arresting Zambada shows its commitment to prosecuting individuals they consider key players in narcotics and especially those linked to fentanyl.”
The impact of the arrests
But whether the high-profile arrests will amount to more than a symbolic and well-publicized triumph remains to be seen. Experts say that the synthetic drug trade, and the fentanyl traffic in particular, has evolved into a decentralized enterprise, making the loss of these leaders less damaging than it might once have been.
“While El Mayo’s arrest is a critical blow to the Sinaloa cartel, it is unlikely to result in the immediate pulverization of the organization,” Celina Realuyo, Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, told The Cipher Brief. “Drug cartels have historically proven to be highly resilient and capable of regenerating leadership and operational capabilities quickly.”
"The capture of Mayo Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez is not going to put a dent in the Sinaloa cartel," Vigil said. "The Sinaloa cartel has a very solid infrastructure. And in order to really damage it, you're going to have to basically destroy the entire infrastructure...and I think that they have a very strong bench in terms of leaders that can step in and take control."
The fentanyl industry is characterized by multiple independent operators leveraging easily accessible chemicals to produce drugs in clandestine labs. While the Sinaloa cartel plays a prominent role, there are now many other players in what amounts to a highly complex supply chain.
Experts also noted that El Mayo, as Zambada is widely known, may have been nearing his last days as the Sinaloa boss.
As Wesley Tabor, a retired Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), put it, “El Mayo is an elderly man, symbolic to those at the cartel level and to those in the U.S. Law Enforcement world,” yet his “utility was nearing its end.”
“Although law enforcement’s efforts are commendable, it’s clear that El Mayo’s role within the cartel has been diminished,” Tabor told The Cipher Brief. "Every cartel has transitions in its leadership just as governments do.”
The impact of the arrests will also be tempered by a fundamental economic reality: As with cocaine and heroin in the past, there is now simply too much money to be made in the traffic of fentanyl – which is relatively cheap to produce – to imagine that the arrests will deter groups from staying in the business.
Targeting the kingpins – pros and cons
Experts say that targeting the cartel kingpins brings obvious gains – and potential downsides as well.
“High-value targeting of both leaders and their money is a necessary part of the struggle against the cartels, but those actions almost always lead to uncertainty and fragmentation with the risk of expanded violence,” Evan Ellis, a Research Professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, told The Cipher Brief. Indeed, in the past week more than thirty people have died in what many believe is post-arrest infighting within the Sinaloa cartel.
“El Mayo’s arrest could lead to a power struggle within the cartel as other members vie for control,” Realuyo explained. “This could result in increased violence and instability, both within Mexico and possibly spilling over into the U.S. border regions.”
“Still,” Ellis said, “not going after the leaders and leaving their organization intact, hoping to minimize violence, only supports their expanding revenues and power, and the corruption of the society in which they operate, as well as their criminal activities such as drug production producing so many overdoses.”
Ioan Grillo, a Mexico City-based journalist specializing in narcotics and gang warfare, told The Cipher Brief that while he doubts the arrests will put a brake on the fentanyl traffic, they will lead to further fracturing within the Sinaloa structure.
According to Ellis and others, El Mayo is expected to talk to authorities, and that may bring real intelligence gains for U.S. law enforcement.
But Ellis also said the Sinaloa arrests could have the unintended ripple effect of bolstering CJNG, Sinaloa’s principal rival cartel, if it moves to claim Sinaloa terrain. Maru Campos, Governor of the Mexican border state of Chihuahua, is bracing for a “worst-case scenario” involving a CJNG-Sinaloa battle for control as El Mayo and Lopez face justice in the U.S.
What the U.S. is doing to stem the trade
Beyond the high-profile captures, the U.S. continues to pursue other avenues in the drug trafficking crisis. This includes law enforcement strategies such as increased border security, targeted raids, and cooperation with Mexican authorities. Additionally, the U.S. government has tried – with limited success – to disrupt the financial networks of cartels, while supporting diplomatic efforts to address the underlying factors contributing to drug trafficking in Mexico.
Realuyo said the border control efforts have included the installation of powerful scanners at ports of entry along the southern border that have seen “the number and quantity of interdictions go up dramatically.” Fentanyl seizures are up by a staggering 860% since 2019, with a nearly twofold jump in just the past year.
And far from Sinaloa, there is the China angle: one of the rare glimmers of collaboration in the U.S.-China relationship is an agreement forged earlier this year to combat the fentanyl crisis by halting the export of the precursor chemicals that are used to manufacture the drug.
But experts say there is more that the U.S. and Mexico could be doing, on both the supply and demand sides.
Ellis noted that while Mexican law enforcement and security forces routinely “put their lives on the line” to combat the drug trade, the cartels’ leverage over the Mexican government remains a major obstacle.
“There were serious questions raised during the (former President) Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration, regarding the extent to which Mexicans were fully cooperating, or that high levels of Mexico’s state and federal governments were penetrated by and cooperating with the cartels.”
On the U.S. side of the border, many experts said that Washington is “not doing enough to reduce demand.”
“Without a comprehensive strategy to attack the demand and supply, we will continue with the whack-a-mole approach that undermines the war on drugs,” Realuyo said.
“We need to do a better job in terms of educating the public because they really don’t have an understanding of how dangerous illegal drugs are, especially fentanyl,” she added. “We need to educate the public, the parents, the schools, everybody has to play a role in this. And without this public awareness, some people are not aware of the horrible danger that people face.”
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