The lawyer, Frank Perez, rejected studies that Zambada — who's got pleaded not responsible to an array of drug trafficking, gun and income laundering fees — had surrendered or been duped onto the plane.

The spectacular turn of events has sparked concern and uncertainty in Sinaloa, the Pacific Coastline state where Zambada had been credited with brokering what happened to el mayo zambada a fragile peace in between rival cartel factions.

“The finishes tend not to justify the signifies,” Lichtman explained. “They don’t. That’s not the state I want to live in, and I don’t Feel it’s the place you want to live in.”

staff members during the DEA’s polygraph device, which vets possible brokers, documented being pressured to move candidates after they failed a lie detector examination, report says.

In recent decades, Guzman’s sons have led a faction in the cartel generally known as the little Chapos, or “Chapitos” which has been discovered like a main exporter of fentanyl for the U.S. market place.

Some others alleged the ruse was an elaborate include story — Which Zambada had secretly surrendered With all the promise of being reunited by using a son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, who testified towards El Chapo and it is now thought to generally be in witness defense.

“We aren’t talking about a composition that is determined by a few kingpins — it’s quite diffuse and resilient to These types of hits,” Mr. Ernst claimed. If just about anything, he reported, the go could spark additional violence as factions vie for control amid a vacuum of energy on the extremely top rated.

The U.S. govt experienced presented a reward of as much as $15 million for info bringing about Zambada’s arrest.

In line with a fifth superseding indictment submitted in February, Zambada led the cartel from 1989 to 2024 since the legal enterprise imported and dispersed "significant portions" of narcotics — which created billions of pounds in gains.

Joaquín Guzmán López, that is noted for functioning cartel finances while preserving a low profile, Minimize a offer on behalf of him and his brother Ovidio Guzmán López, a senior legislation enforcement Formal verified to CBS News. Three sons of Guzmán Loera —including Ovidio— were billed last year with orchestrating a transnational fentanyl trafficking Procedure into America.

The arrest of Mr. Zambada García — prolonged regarded as a godfather in his region’s underworld and one among its shrewdest remaining capos — resounded throughout Mexico as considered one of the most significant blows to structured crime in recent decades.

Prosecutors said he was continuing to guide the Sinaloa cartel, “The most violent and potent drug trafficking businesses in the world.”

In line with resources informed about your situation who were not licensed to speak publicly regarding the arrests, Zambada was duped into boarding the plane that brought him to U.S. soil.

But in the end, U.S. officers stated, he was betrayed by an unlikely foe: a son of his closest criminal ally, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the notorious drug lord often known as El Chapo, that's now serving a lifetime sentence within an American federal jail.