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It sounded like a story ripped from a narco thriller: One of the biggest drug lords in Mexico was lured onto an airplane, flown across the border and presented to American federal agents by the son of his former partner in crime. As improbable as it may seem, that is exactly what appears to have happened on Thursday evening, when a Beechcraft King Air turboprop landed at a small municipal airport outside El Paso, and off stepped one of the most wanted men in Mexico: Ismael Zambada García, a founder of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel. Mr. Zambada García, known as El Mayo, had for decades evaded capture by both Mexican and American officials, living a life of luxurious simplicity in the mountains of Sinaloa — despite the $15 million U.S. bounty on his head. But in the end, U.S. officials said, he was betrayed by an unlikely foe: a son of his closest criminal ally, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the infamous drug lord known as El Chapo, who is now serving a life sentence in an American federal prison.

Persons: Ismael Zambada García, Zambada García, Sinaloa —, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo Organizations: Beechcraft King Air Locations: Mexico, El Paso, Sinaloa, El Mayo, U.S

American law enforcement has arrested two top leaders of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most dominant criminal groups in Mexico, the Justice Department said on Thursday. The two operatives, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, are among the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico and command massive transnational cocaine and fentanyl businesses that move narcotics into the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Both men were in custody in El Paso, Texas. Mr. Zambada García, who is known as “El Mayo,” has been pursued by the U.S. government for years and has been charged in several federal indictments stretching back more than two decades. He has never been imprisoned, unlike his top ally, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, who was extradited to the United States, convicted in Brooklyn federal court in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison on drug conspiracy charges.

Persons: Ismael Zambada García, Guzmán, Zambada García, El, ”, Joaquín Guzmán, El Chapo Organizations: Sinaloa Cartel, Justice, U.S Locations: Sinaloa, Mexico, United States, Europe, El Paso , Texas, El Mayo, Brooklyn

☆ Ex-President of Honduras Denies at Trial That He Trafficked Drugs
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Colin Moynihan | Nate Schweber | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The former two-term president of Honduras denied in court on Tuesday that he had trafficked narcotics, offered police protection to drug cartels or taken bribes — assertions that have been at the heart of a conspiracy trial taking place in Manhattan. The former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, has been on trial for two weeks in Federal District Court, facing charges that he conspired to import cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors said that he worked with ruthless drug gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel, led by the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo. Government witnesses have included a string of former traffickers from Honduras who testified that they bribed Mr. Hernández in return for promises that he would insulate them from investigations and protect them from extradition to the United States. Dressed in a dark suit with a blue shirt and tie, Mr. Hernández sat up straight during his testimony and sometimes gave long, discursive answers that prompted the judge overseeing the trial to rein him in.

Persons: Juan Orlando Hernández, Joaquín Guzman Loera, Hernández Organizations: Federal, Court, Prosecutors, Chapo Locations: Honduras, Manhattan, United States, Sinaloa, Mexican

☆ Son of El Chapo Extradited to Chicago to Face Federal Drug Charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Alan Feuer | More About Alan Feuer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ovidio Guzmán López, one of four sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord best known as El Chapo, was extradited to Chicago on Friday to face trial on a sprawling set of federal drug charges, according to his lawyer and American officials. The extradition came a little more than nine months after Mr. Guzmán López was arrested by the Mexican authorities in Culiacán, a city in northwestern Mexico that has long been the home base of the Sinaloa drug cartel, the criminal organization his father helped bring to prominence. It also came nearly four years after Mr. Guzmán López’s calamitous first arrest, which prompted a bloody siege of Culiacán by cartel gunmen that was so destructive the authorities were ultimately forced to let him go. Ultimately, the sons — known collectively as Los Chapitos — were charged in a series of competing indictments in Washington, Chicago and New York. The 40-page indictment against him and his brothers — Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Joaquín Guzmán López — takes a sweeping look at drug sales and violent crimes reaching back, in some instances, to 2008.

Persons: Ovidio Guzmán, Joaquín, Loera, El Chapo, Guzmán López, Guzmán López’s calamitous, Guzmán, —, Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar Organizations: Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Locations: Mexican, Chicago, Culiacán, Mexico, Sinaloa, Brooklyn, Washington , Chicago, New York, Washington, San Diego

☆ When art and money meet
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Amanda Taub | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I’ve often thought that if one was looking for niche curses to place on enemies, “May you be profiled by Patrick Radden Keefe” would be a particularly potent option. Amid such company, Larry Gagosian, the global art-market king who is the subject of Radden Keefe’s latest profile, gets off relatively lightly. I was reminded of one of my favorite exhibitions of all time, “The Steins Collect,” which I saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York a decade ago. Regular readers will know that I like biographies about artists, so you might have expected the Gagosian profile to send me reaching for more of those. (I wonder what Lewis, who studied art history as a Princeton undergraduate before going into finance and then journalism, would make of Gagosian.)

Persons: I’ve, “, Patrick Radden Keefe, Guzmán Loera, El, Gerry Adams, Larry Gagosian, Radden, Radden Keefe, Gagosian, Matisse, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Michael Lewis, Lewis Organizations: New Yorker, Irish Republican, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wall, Princeton Locations: Mexican, New York

☆ How El Chapo’s sons built a fentanyl empire poisoning America
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +23 min

Headed by Iván, El Chapo’s oldest son, the siblings have emerged as key figures in the Sinaloa Cartel, U.S. and Mexican anti-narcotics officials said. But he was killed in 2008 in Culiacán in a hail of bullets amid infighting between warring factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. The agency in April placed Iván on the list of its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, joining Jesús Alfredo and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a Sinaloa Cartel legend and El Chapo’s alleged former business partner. They also kidnapped eight soldiers and surrounded military housing where wives and children of Mexican soldiers lived, Mexican officials said. Despite that blow to the Sinaloa Cartel, fentanyl keeps flowing north.

☆ Ovidio Guzmán's arrest may be the start of a campaign against El Chapo's sons and the Sinaloa cartel
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Chris Dalby | Insight Crime | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Mexican authorities arrested Ovidio Guzmán, son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, earlier this month. The US has demanded action on fentanyl, and Ovidio's arrest may prompt Mexico to continue a targeted campaign. Ovidio Guzmán López is one of the four sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias "El Chapo," who is seeking to continue their father's legacy. Vehicles torched during a January 5 operation to arrest Ovidio Guzman in Culiacan on January 7. In the last couple of years alone, they have mounted targeted operations at rivals within the Sinaloa Cartel and beyond.

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