“They are looking for him everywhere and the man is not even hiding,” sings a song by Los Tucanes de Tijuana in honor of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The 76-year-old drug lord, one of the three founders and until now leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on Thursday by US authorities.
Also in custody was Joaquín Guzmán López, the 36-year-old son of the notorious Chapo Guzmán, the other founder of one of the world’s largest drug trafficking companies, sentenced to life in prison in the United States.
This is an unprecedented blow to two of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world, accused of extortion, corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering.
And it is a blow to a symbol of the industry, El Mayo, also known as “The Man with the Hat,” who has generated admiration, stories and a handful of deaths and cases of corruption after four decades in the business.
The corrido tumbado by Los Tucanes, which has 10 million views on YouTube, continues: “The law wants to stop him, the contras want to kill him, but no one has succeeded, the devil appears to them.”
But the myth of El Mayo, which will probably remain a cultural myth, will no longer be able to boast of its great feat: that “they had never been arrested.”
While El Chapo, also a founder of the Sinaloa cartel, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019, his son and longtime ally will now enter a trial that is likely to yield similar results.
From drug dealer to leader
The story of Mayo, the rise from low-level drug dealer to “boss of bosses,” as he is often called, is one of pragmatism, cunning and corruption.
After a short stint delivering furniture on the streets of Culiacán, Zambada began in the 1970s as a drug trafficker for the Guadalajara cartel, a pioneer in the industry trading opium, marijuana and, eventually, cocaine.
He then worked in the Juarez cartel, first as a middle manager and then as a leader, increasingly close to Amado Carrillo, the so-called “Lord of the Skies.” From there, it is believed that he created his network of contacts in Colombia, a country where he made great friends and cocaine-producing partners.
As other bosses died or fell, Zambada became more powerful. He rarely had a problem with betraying an ally..
And if there is one thing that sets him apart from the others, it is that he has always kept a low profile. There are hardly any images of him. It is reported that he has even had surgery to change his appearance. That he is 1.80 meters tall. That he is big and strong. That he has many women and children. Little else.
He spent decades moving back and forth between the mountains of northwestern Mexico. It was unusual for him to sleep two nights in a row in the same place.
The most entrepreneurial of drug traffickers
One of his sons, Vicente Zambada Niebla, was arrested by Mexican authorities in 2009. His prison diary was later released.
In it, and in the testimony he gave to the US authorities, Zambada junior said that his father paid up to a million dollars in bribes a month. That his network of complicity included banks and governments. That he maintained contact with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Mayo Zambada became a legend because he was one of the drug traffickers most concerned with creating ties with the community.
He has been a patron of El Álamo, his native ranch, and other towns in the Sinaloa region, financing their arrangements, works and celebrations.
And if he was one of the least prominent and most socially rooted, El Mayo was also the drug trafficker who trafficked the least, because his greatest contribution to the operation of the Sinaloa Cartel, more than the export of narcotics, was to create a commercial branch for money laundering managed by women in his family. It is reported that he laundered billions of dollars. The United States Treasury Department attributes to him the ownership of important construction, milk and services companies.
That is why he was the closest to Mexican politics, culture and authorities. That is also why he is the one who can provide the most information about the role of the legal world in the vast drug trafficking industry.
The unknown and opaque myth of Ismael Zambada –also known as “El Rey”, “El Grande” and “El MZ”– will now begin to be clarified.
One of El Chapo’s heirs
As for Joaquín Guzmán López, arrested along with Mayo this Thursday, not many details are known about his life.
The 38-year-old man, known as “El Güero,” is the son of El Chapo and Griselda López Pérez, the drug lord’s second wife. His role in the criminal organization has been more secondary than that of his brother Ovidio.
Over time he became more involved in the businesses inherited from his father and in 2015 he was involved in the operation that allowed El Chapo to escape from the Altiplano Prison.
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