Ismael Zambada García
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Ismael MAyo Zambada García (M-Z) (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 Joaquín Guzmán, of the Sinaloa Cartel the most modern 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."
Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced the indictment of Mexican drug lord Ismael Zambada-Garcia, head of the Zambada-Garcia drug organization (ZGO), and the arrests of over 240 individuals in the United States and Mexico. The indictment and related arrests are the result of Operation Trifecta, a 19-month-long international Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation into cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine trafficking. The investigation was conducted by agents and analysts from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, attorneys from the Justice Department's Criminal Division and various U.S. Attorneys' offices, and coordinated by the Special Operations Division, a DEA-led program.
The indictment unsealed was returned in late January 2003 by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia. The indictment charges Ismael Zambada-Garcia and three of his top lieutenants, Vicente Zambada-Niebla "El Nino", Javier Torres-Felix "El J.T.", and Jesus Zambada-Guzman "Magic", with conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine. The indictment specifically alleges that between August 2001 and June 2002, the Zambada-Garcia organization delivered 1,003 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated value of $17 million to the New York/New Jersey area; 1,770 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated value of $30 million to the Chicago area; and 23 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated value of $391,000 to California.
Cocaine seized aboard The Macel ship in December 2001. The seizure totaled 9,291 kilograms of cocaine. In September 2002, the Zambada-Garcia organization was named by the Attorney General as a top target
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.
A U.S. investigator 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-Guzman, 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 Victor Magaña and 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.
Chavez said authorities were "one step away from El Chapo and two steps away from El Mayo."
Seeing that the authorities were on to them. A plan was devised to give Vicente Zambada-Niebla control of Mexico and the west coast of the United States. Zambada-Niebla is the son of Zambada-Garcia, and is in his early thirties. He might also use the alias Ivan Avendano Barraza his nick-name is El Nino, and it is believed he lives in or around Culiacan the state capital of Sinaloa.
Jesus Zambada Guzman it is believed he is in control of the east coast operation of the organization. A modern day mafia prince he is nephew to both El Mayo and El Chapo . In his late twenties keeps a very low profile, he is very humble and quiet. His aliases include El 5 , El 23, Magic , El Pelon and El Cholo . He along with Edgar Villareal alias La Barbie are believed to be in charge of the elite group of hitmen named Los Negros . They employ thugs from the Mexican Mafia , MS-13 and 18th Street los angeles based street gangs. He might walk with a limp due to various attempts on his life and is known to be very generous to his people. He takes a business man approach to running his organization thus is very well respected among his peers....
