In an operation that was planned for months, FBI arrested Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada on Thursday in El Paso (Texas), leader and co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world's most wanted criminals for decades for whom the U.S. authorities had offered a $15 million reward "for information leading to his capture or death." Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was also arrested in the operation.

As if taken from a movie plot, the arrest happened through a betrayal that led Zambada to believe they were inspecting clandestine airstrips in Mexican territory, but instead, they were taken to a private airport in the border city of El Paso where FBI agents were waiting for them.

"The Department of Justice has arrested two other alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world," the Department of Justice said in a statement. Both are "facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the cartel's criminal operations, including their deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks."

Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, leader and founder of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Who was El Mayo Zambada

Born in Culiacán (Mexico) 76 years ago, Ismael Mario Zambada García began his career in drug trafficking in the 1970s in the Guadalajara cartel. Starting in 2001, he began working in collaboration with "El Chapo" Guzmán to strengthen the Sinaloa Cartel.

When Joaquín "Chapo" Guzmán was arrested in February 2014, Zambada took his place as the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. That same day, the DEA declared El Mayo the most powerful drug lord in Northern Mexico.

In contrast to other drug traffickers, Zambada has always sought to keep a low profile, which may have helped him evade the authorities. There is even an unofficial version that he underwent plastic surgery to avoid being identified.

His photographs were scarce, and there were no recent images in the possession of the authorities. Although Zambada's face had remained one of the best-kept secrets in the criminal world in Mexico, or perhaps precisely because of this, recent fiction showed interest in bringing the character to the screen.

This is how Narcos portrayed El Mayo Zambada

Basing on the real history of the drug empire founded by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in Mexico, in its third season Narcos: Mexico, it shifts the action to the nineties to bid farewell to one of Netflix's most successful franchises

Although he did not appear in the early seasons of the series, El Mayo Zambada was always mentioned for his relationship with other drug lords and his roles within the organized crime structure in the 1980s, when the Sinaloa Cartel was consolidated.

In the last season, the Cuban Alberto Guerra portrayed this drug lord, a role that was quite challenging for the actor since he did not have any archived video footage to use as a reference to create the character.

"Exactly with him, there's this mysterious thing that hardly anything is known, but you already know where the story is going to end; so, there's a point where you must forget that he exists and is historical, then the creative part comes in where it's not just copying and pasting," the actor said to the newspaper El Universal in 2021.

Responding to some criticisms that accused the series of glorifying the activities of the drug trafficker, the actor said, "The fact that a series like Narcos is so well made, with such incredible photography, such a high-level production design, is what can give the sense that it's an apology, but the story is there, the series just portrays it," he said in an interview published in De primera mano.

*This article has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence