The arrest of Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada by the United States on Thursday caused international shock, but also left several questions unanswered.
Zambada, 76, had for decades avoided arrest in his home country as leader of the Sinaloa cartel he founded with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
The first question is how exactly the arrest of a drug trafficker who seemed out of reach for police forces on both sides of the border occurred.
U.S. media reports, citing unnamed U.S. officials, say El Mayo was tricked into flying to El Paso, Texas, by a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel.
Some even say that the person who handed him over was Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of El Chapo who was arrested along with El Mayo.
Falko Ernst, senior analyst in Mexico for the International Crisis Group, warns that if this is confirmed, there could be new acts of violence within the Sinaloa cartel.
The organized crime expert believes that an internal struggle for the new leadership of the organization is likely, but he rules out major changes in the drug business in Mexico.
And he points out that another question is how much Zambada will reveal about his ties to governments, since it is believed, according to various testimonies, that for years he gave bribes and collaboration in exchange for remaining free.
“If someone like El Mayo were to open up completely and release all the information, it would be something that could potentially be quite destabilising for bilateral relations,” Ernst said in an interview with BBC Mundo.
How astonishing is the arrest of El Mayo Zambada in the US considering that he had managed to evade capture in Mexico for decades?
Indeed, there was a long run on his part. In that sense, the capture at this time is a surprise.
But if we also look at the trajectory of the greatest historical drug lords in Mexico, there has not been one who has escaped death, extradition or a Mexican prison.
So it shouldn’t be too surprising. But we don’t know much about how this arrest came about.
Reports have emerged from unnamed US security officials that Zambada was flown to the US at the behest of Joaquin Guzman Lopez. How do you feel about this?
It is still speculation. There are several news sources citing different sources within the US security forces.
There have been many internal tensions within the Sinaloa cartel, with the Chapitos, the Mayos and all the factions. In this context, a move of this kind would make some sense.
The cartel is not a monolithic organization, it is an agglomeration of different currents, clans, families and factions where there has already been much internal fighting.
If the theory that it was an internal betrayal that led to the arrest is indeed established, one could expect even greater friction and, therefore, greater acts of violence between those who identify themselves as part of the Sinaloa scene.
What American sources say is that Guzmán López handed over Zambada to help his brother Ovidio, who is in prison in the US. Would such a betrayal be extraordinary in the world of drug trafficking?
Betraying a figure like El Mayo would be quite a huge thing because whoever does that betrayal would have to face the fear of reprisals. That doesn’t come for free.
But at the same time we are talking about drug trafficking in Mexico, which is a world of constant betrayal, of seeking profit and personal advancement, of protecting oneself and those closest to one. It comes down to loyalty to one’s blood family.
What do these arrests mean for the Sinaloa cartel, which US President Joe Biden described on Friday as “one of the deadliest corporations in the world”?
If we look at the popular imagination of politicians on both sides of the border and at a global level regarding the structure of organized crime organizations in Mexico, cartels are usually spoken of as if they were monolithic, perfectly vertical and integrated entities.
And the reality is that they usually give themselves a brand, a name, and behind that facade lies a universe of different alliances, clans and factions.
In the case of Sinaloa, with the arrest of El Chapo and his extradition [a EE.UU.] A few years ago, with the fall of several other old-school bosses with a lot of power within the structure that gave cohesion to the organization, there had even been deadly violence between different factions.
There were fights over the direction the cartel should take, a rather interesting and dramatic generational shift in how to do business, which has been moving from a model based on drug trafficking, from the production of narcotics to domestic distribution and sales, to something broader that includes the extraction of natural resources or large-scale extortion.
Now, looking to the future, if that figure of cohesion of Mayo is missing, we will most likely see more fights for leadership within the structure and, therefore, pressures that could further disintegrate the Sinaloa cartel.
Can the fall of Mayo change the map of organized crime in Mexico?
We have to wait a little and see changes beyond the Sinaloa scene, depending on what happens internally.
But we can say now that this is not unfavorable to the Jalisco cartel, for example, as a great competitor of the Sinaloa cartel on the national and international scene.
We will see this type of effect more in the medium and long term, because the absence of a boss like El Mayo does not automatically translate into the fall of the entire structure. There are lieutenants and other commanders who will take charge of the same structure.
We are probably not talking about revolutionary and dramatic short-term effects, but rather about longer-term developments.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Sinaloa cartel’s operations included “deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.” What is known about this, given that it would be a relatively new activity for the organization?
Yes, it had become a fairly important source of income for certain factions of the Sinaloa cartel in recent years and months.
This also explains the pressure that the cartel had received from the American authorities, because it had become a huge political issue in the US.
This arrest cannot be explained without that pressure in the context of fentanyl.
Could there be immediate effects on the illicit fentanyl market?
I imagine there could be some short-term shocks, because someone is investing too many resources to send messages to fentanyl producers to cut back or face the consequences.
But it is the same logic that has been applied for decades to the problem of other drugs, including methamphetamine, cocaine, etc. And in the medium or long term it has never worked, because once the technique on how to produce these drugs and traffic them can be imitated, there will be others who are already doing or will try to do the same.
These markets do not depend on a few bosses to survive. And in fentanyl, the effect has already been seen in that there are already many actors involved in production who have access to the necessary chemicals. That is almost impossible to stop with the arrest of a few characters.
In any case, these arrests have been portrayed as a triumph by Washington, which offered up to $15 million for El Mayo Zambada. Do you consider this to be a success for the US in some sense?
We must also ask who benefits from this in Washington at this moment. For the DEA or the FBI, it may be a credit, because they can say that they got their hands on a big fish who had greatly fueled the popular imagination and who is a bit of a representative of evil in this context.
But more questions need to be asked.
This “boss strategy” had already been applied in the past, where the recipe had been to remove the visible leaders of a thousand-headed structure: we are talking about a field of illicit economic activity that is very diffuse and resilient to this type of action, which has survived all this time.
We are talking about at least 200 criminal groups, partly dedicated to drug trafficking, that are active in Mexico. And if you remove one or two, the structure does not change.
So thinking long-term also about how to reduce violence and save lives, this is not a solution.
There are like two dramatically different perspectives.
Electorally, this suits Biden, Harris and the Democrats because they can show that they are being effective and doing something about the fentanyl problem on American soil.
Since the news of Zambada’s arrest broke, speculation has been rife about what he might say about corruption in Mexico and his possible contacts with U.S. security agencies. Do you expect revelations in this regard or would it be more logical for El Mayo to remain silent, as El Chapo did after his extradition?
It’s a good question. It would be a dream to know what El Mayo is saying about the last decades of government-drug relations in Mexico and the US, because he would have a thousand stories to tell with very good information.
But this is also a political issue. There are two scenarios in which the US could use some of the information it may obtain to pressure certain officials in Mexico and take the necessary steps it believes necessary in the bilateral relationship, which is very complicated beyond security, in terms of legal markets, energy, migration, etc.
So this is more part of a logic of bilateral negotiation.
And at the same time, if someone like El Mayo were to open up completely and release all the information, it would be something that would potentially be quite destabilizing for bilateral relations.
And that is not, at least for the moment, in the interest of the American authorities, starting with the State Department.
Indeed, this news comes at a special moment in the relationship between the US and Mexico. The common border is a hot spot in the White House election campaign and Claudia Sheinbaum is preparing to take office as the first female president in Mexico’s history. Do you see the arrest of Zambada and Guzmán López as a sign of bilateral collaboration on security issues or is that still to be seen?
It remains to be seen. But in the first reports we have heard from the current Mexican Executive, the Ministry of Public Security has stressed that Mexico was not aware of this operation.
In the past, for example, when General Cienfuegos was arrested in the US without Mexico’s knowledge, Mexico’s reaction against unilateral operations against Mexican targets or on Mexican soil was very strong and led to a crisis of collaboration on security matters between Mexico and the US.
We will see what the reaction will be, but there is some potential that this could further embitter and complicate the security collaboration between the two nations.
It is a bit early to see how Sheinbaum and López Obrador’s team will position themselves on this matter.
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