Joaquín Guzmán López, is the son of the “Chapo” Guzmán, arrested by the DEA.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, and the son of another of the creators of the drug trafficking gang, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, were arrested Thursday in Texas, the U.S. Department of Justice reported.
“Ismael Zambada García, or ‘El Mayo’, co-founder of the cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, son of his other co-founder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas,” Attorney General Merrick Garland explained in a statement, who described this cartel as “one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.”
Both bosses face “multiple charges in the United States for directing the cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks,” Garland said.
Joaquín Guzmán López is one of the so-called “Chapitos,” the sons of drug dealer El Chapo Guzmán, who was head of the Sinaloa cartel and serving life imprisonment in an American prison.
After El Chapo’s capture in January 2016 and his extradition to the United States the following year, his children became a key piece of the organization.
One of them, Ovidio Guzman, was also handed over to the U.S. justice last September.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. recorded more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2023. Fentanyl accounted for about 70 percent of them.
Washington claims that fentanyl is often made from products from China, and then drug traffickers, especially the Sinaloa cartel, smuggle it from Mexico across the border.
This article has been translated after first appearing in Diario El Mundo