What we know about the Sinaloa cartel and its leaders

By Nicole Chavez, CNN

(CNN) — The arrests of two top alleged leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel are an “enormous blow” to the group accused of being responsible for most drugs “killing Americans from coast to coast”, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration says.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the cartel’s alleged co-founder, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of former boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, were arrested Thursday by US authorities in El Paso, Texas.

They face several charges for allegedly leading the criminal operations of what is considered one of world’s most powerful and deadly drug trafficking operations.

Here’s what we know about the Sinaloa cartel’s decades-long operations, impact and key players:

A cartel born in the 1980s

The Sinaloa cartel, named after the Mexican state where it was formed, is one of the oldest and most established drug trafficking groups in Mexico. It has long supplied much of the marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl peddled on US streets, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

In the early 2010s, estimates indicated the cartel controlled roughly 40% to 60% of Mexico’s drug trade, earning as much as $3 billion annually, the CRS report said.

It was founded in the late 1980s and led by El Chapo, who twice escaped from Mexican prisons before being detained by Mexican authorities in Sinaloa in 2016. He was extradited to the US the following year and is serving a life sentence in US federal prison.

The cartel has been blamed for having a key role in the drug war that plagued Mexico for years, leaving tens of thousands of people dead, as well as contributing to the ongoing high levels of violence across the country.

Since Guzman’s imprisonment in the US, experts believe the cartel has faced several challenges after breaking into factions – including some led by Zambada and Guzman’s sons – and with the rise of rival cartels.

Key players

The Sinaloa cartel was formerly led by El Chapo Guzman, who infamously eluded authorities while expanding the organization’s drug trafficking operation across the world. In the process, he became the topic of numerous best-selling books and TV shows.

El Chapo initially escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001, reportedly hiding in a laundry basket, and again in 2015 through a tunnel. After he was recaptured in 2016, he was extradited to the US, where he was convicted on federal drug conspiracy and various trafficking charges in 2019.

Zambada, 76, is considered the last of the old-school Mexican drug capos. A longtime associate of Guzman, he’s allegedly led transportation operations, employing people to secure “warehouses to import and store narcotics, and ‘sicarios,’ or hit men, to carry out kidnappings and murders in Mexico to retaliate against rivals who threatened the cartel,” according to the Justice Department.

In February, the US charged Zambada with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl.

Guzman Lopez and his brothers, known as “Los Chapitos,” have allegedly led one of the three main factions of the cartel since their father’s imprisonment. He and his brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, are believed to have inherited relationships and narcotics proceeds after one of their brother’s death, leading them to invest in marijuana, cocaine and ephedrine from Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, according to the Justice Department. At some point, Guzman Lopez oversaw methamphetamine labs, selling wholesale in Sinaloa and to distributors in the US and Canada.

How the cartel works

The Sinaloa cartel is known for trafficking wholesale amounts of fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, according to the DEA. The group has distribution hubs in several cities across the US, controlling the smuggling corridors in Arizona and California. The group also allegedly runs fentanyl labs in Mexico.

It is one of two cartels that has used its control of the fentanyl trade to develop sophisticated money-laundering techniques that exploit cryptocurrency, according to US officials.

In one case, the cartel laundered more than $869,000 using cryptocurrency between August 2022 and February 2023, according to a US indictment unsealed last year.

The DEA says most of the fentanyl that enters the US comes from ingredients made in China that are then pressed into pills – or packed in powder – and smuggled in from Mexico by drug cartels.

How the alleged leaders were captured

The men boarded a plane in Mexico and were arrested when it landed near El Paso, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. Zambada believed they were inspecting property in the Mexican side of the US border and was not aware Guzman Lopez was helping US investigators, the official said.

The lure operation resulting in the arrests has prompted a furious behind-the-scenes reaction from Mexican government officials who are demanding senior US law enforcement officials explain exactly what transpired, according to a US official familiar with the operation.

Officials in Mexico were not briefed ahead of the planned captures, the official said. CNN has reached out to Mexican officials for comment.

Samuel González, a legal expert and former chief of Mexico’s anti-drug unit, told CNN the potentially deceptive circumstances of the arrest could reflect possible negotiations between Guzman Lopez and his brother Ovidio, who was extradited to the US last year and is facing drug and money laundering charges.

“If Ovidio had not surrendered, Mayo (Zambada) would not have fallen either,” González said.

What the arrests mean for the future

The arrests on Thursday have raised concerns about what the future of the cartel will be and the potential for increased violence in Mexico.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who covers drug markets and counternarcotic policies, told CNN the arrests will most certainly lead to increased violence since Zambada was known to, at times, broker deals with criminal groups to avoid it.

“Among all the drug bosses, he was the most cool-headed,” Felbab-Brown said.

Some experts say internal fighting may result in the downfall of the Sinaloa cartel, but Felbab-Brown warned that other Mexican cartels stand ready to take their place, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

“This would have very complicated ripple effects across global drug markets,” Felbab-Brown said of the Sinaloa cartel’s potential downfall, “but as long as there is (CJNG), we will end up with a drug market on our doorstep that’s run by a much more vicious, much nastier, much less restrained group than the current one.”

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CNN’s Holmes Lybrand, Josh Campbell and Fidel Gutierrez contributed to this report.