Ismael Zambada García
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Ismael Zambada García (born 1948), also known as El Mayo Zambada, is an alleged Mexican drug lord. Zambada Garcia is a native of the state of Sinaloa.
[edit] Background
According to the DEA, Zambada García is the Capo (captain), along with Joaquin Guzman Loera, of the Sinaloa Cartel the most modern and violent cartel in Mexico.
Authorities believe that an operation known as Operation Trifecta, where 240 people were arrested, forced Zambada-Garcia to change his operational methods. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, Mexico's new No. 1 drug lord, rose to the top by eliminating rivals, winning over Colombian cocaine producers and evading a 19-month U.S.-Mexico effort to smash his smuggling syndicate, investigators told The Associated Press.
Zambada is hardly a household name, yet he has become the most wanted drug smuggler in Mexico and is expected to be added soon to the FBI's Top 10 Most-Wanted Fugitives list, U.S. and Mexican drug agents told AP.
Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor, Jose Santiago Vasconcelos, called Zambada "drug dealer No. 1" and said the fugitive has become more powerful as his fellow kingpins have fallen, including one who was allegedly killed on Zambada's orders.
"With all the other groups, we have captured the leaders," Vasconcelos said at his heavily guarded Mexico City office. "He's the only leader we haven't caught."
Zambada's organization was the target of "Operation Trifecta," a 19-month, U.S.-Mexican sting that ended July 31. Authorities say they collared 240 suspected drug smugglers in the United States and Mexico, seized nearly six tons of cocaine and unsealed U.S. federal indictments against Zambada, his son and his key cocaine distributor.
Errol Chavez, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Arizona division, said the operation confirmed "the scope of (Zambada's) influence in Mexico is legendary," spanning nearly 30 years.
Zambada, the 55-year-old leader of a drug gang based in the Pacific Coast resort city of Mazatlan, has formed alliances with "almost every known drug trafficking group in Mexico," Chavez said.
No one knows exactly how much Mexico's drug trade - or Zambada's sizable share of it - are worth, but the White House estimates about half the $65 billion in narcotics that Americans buy each year comes through Mexico.
Zambada has been charged with organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico, and a U.S. indictment charges him with conspiring to smuggle cocaine.
Zambada's rise to the top of Mexico's drug ranks began in February 2002, when police in Mazatlan shot and killed Ramon Arellano Felix. The feared enforcer for the Tijuana-based smuggling gang bearing his family's name, Arellano Felix had been on the list of the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives.
Chavez and U.S. investigators in Mexico City who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Zambada lured Arellano Felix to his home turf in a complex trap thought up, and executed by his nephew Jesus Zambada Gamboa and paid the police officers who killed him, although Mexican officials won't confirm that. Zambada has never been charged in the case.
Zambada got another boost a month later, when authorities captured Ramon Arellano Felix's brother Benjamin, the Arellano Felix gang's operations chief.
The Arellano Felix gang was Mexico's most powerful smuggling syndicate from the late 1990s until the death of Ramon Arellano Felix and the capture of Benjamin Arellano Felix.
Many investigators on both sides of the border speculated that no one drug lord would step up and fill the power vacuum left by a weakened Arellano Felix gang.
But Chavez said Zambada rose to power by winning the trust of Colombian cocaine producers in a way the Arellano Felix gang never could, allowing his organization to move more cocaine into the United States than most other smuggling syndicates.
"There were financial problems between the (Arellano Felix organization) and the Colombians," Chavez said, noting that as the Arellano Felix brothers fell, "bills went unpaid and the Colombians sought other trafficking organizations they trusted more."
"They sought out El Mayo," he explained.
Zambada formed close ties to a Colombian cocaine producing organization believed to be run by twin brothers Miguel and Victor Mejia Munera, U.S. investigators say.
Arellano Felix syndicate smugglers still bring tons of cocaine into the United States via Tijuana. Rather than challenge the rival gang's authority between Baja California and California, Zambada has tightened his control of smuggling routes leading from neighboring Sonora state into Arizona, authorities say.
Chavez said his office is stationing more DEA agents and informants in Sonora and southernmost Arizona in an effort to further target Zambada's group. The DEA also has received special funding for highway billboards between Tucson and Phoenix featuring a wanted poster of Zambada.
Zambada remains a bitter enemy of the Arellano Felix gang, but is close to accused Juarez cartel leader Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and has reached out to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, a convicted drug lord who escaped from prison and specializes in building drug tunnels under the U.S. border, authorities say.
"El Mayo is more of the businessman, the guy who wants to cooperate and bring people together," Chavez said. "He and El Chapo are very close. They have helped each other become very successful in Arizona."
Originally from Sinaloa state where Mazatlan is located, Zambada got his start as an enforcer and hit man for the Juarez cartel based in the border city of the same name.
Investigators can't agree on when he founded his own group of freelance smugglers. Mexico's attorney general's office still listed him as one of the heads of Juarez cartel's operations in Sinaloa as recently as 1998, but Chavez and other DEA officials said Zambada began working to form his own group in Mazatlan more than a decade ago.
Mexico has taken out several top drug lords over the past two years. Besides the Arellano Felix brothers, police and soldiers collared Osiel Cardenas, the alleged head of the gulf cartel, in March. Last month, they caught up with Armando Valencia, one of the alleged heads of a drug gang based in the central state of Michoacan.
Chavez said the DEA is watching family members Zambada has in the United States, but there's no evidence he has crossed the border. In August, Mexican special agents stormed homes in Sonora state's capital, Hermosillo, arresting one Zambada associate.
Chavez said authorities were "one step away from El Chapo and two steps away from El Mayo."
"It came down to timing," he said. "Our timing wasn't right. It is rumoured that he gave his nephew total control of the United States operation of the organization. Little is known about his nephew, but reports have his name listed as Jesus or Israel. What is known is that his paternal last names are Zambada Garcia and Gamboa Loera and that he might also use various aliases and nick-names including Fantasma and Magic. It has been reported he runs operations from Chicago, is in his mid-twenties, keeps a very low profile, rarely drives and might walk with a limp due to various shots he received from an attempted attack on his life in which he was shot numerous times in his legs. A.P. Reports have him as a very articulate individual, very charming and of great knowledge. His approach to running the organization is more of a business type opting to talk things over then to resort to violence. Although he was arrested charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. It is alleged that he masterminded the 2002 assassination of rival drug trafficker Ramón Arellano Félix from the Tijuana Cartel, who was considered one of the most feared drug lords in Mexican history. He had convinced the Tijuana cartel that he was willing to sell out his own family. Then in the end he turned the tables on the most organized Mexican cartel and played them with their own game. His godfather and uncle is Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias "El Chapo", whose botched assassination was ordered by Ramón Arellano Félix in Guadalajara during May 1993 and instead resulted in the death of a Roman Catholic archbishop. Following the death of Ramón Arellano Félix in 2002 it was an open market and his reward was imperial domination of drug trafficking activities into the US. He gained fame and respect from his peers which allowed him to leave southern California and disappear into the midwest where it is believed he operates. As of early 2006. It is believed he is responsible with a full out fledged war with the " Zetas ", The firepower of the Gulf Cartel. He had remainded dormant for a couple years yet seeing no end in sight various informants believe he decided to come back to his old ways. Jesus Zambada Loera has strong connections in Michoacan and Quintana Roo, therefore the Zetas are a big problem for him, since they have tried to take over these states.
