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 prison 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 era of Sinaloa traffickers, specialists 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 “vital potential for prime 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 airplane departed Hermosillo, northern Mexico, on Thursday morning with solely an American pilot aboard, certain 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 airplane stopped transmitting its elevation and velocity 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 of the arrests an “advance.” Talking concerning the ongoing cartel battles alongside the Guatemala border, López Obrador downplayed the violence that compelled almost 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.
Inner Cartel dynamics
Frank Pérez, Zambada’s lawyer, instructed 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 task in trapping Zambada. The Chapitos, or Little Chapos, type a faction inside the Sinaloa cartel usually 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 pal nor his collaborator,” Reveles stated. Guzmán López, thought of the least influential of the 4 Chapitos brothers, is among the many primary 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.
Impression 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 medicine, 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 regulate the nation’s violence. López Obrador’s give attention to assuaging the basis causes of violence, fairly than direct confrontation with the cartels, has strained relations with US authorities, significantly the DEA. Felbab-Brown said this method 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 costs 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.”An important factor to observe is how a lot intelligence El Mayo will now present and the way a lot proof in change for higher phrases,” she stated.
