CNN
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Federal brokers arrested two Mexican alleged cartel bosses on Thursday, together with Joaquin Guzmán López, the son of notorious cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in one of many greatest victories for US regulation enforcement in recent times.
The 2 detained males belong to the Sinaloa cartel, one of many world’s strongest drug-trafficking organizations, considered accountable for the trafficking of huge quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the US.
Investigators exploited a rift within the cartel and used the assistance of Guzmán López to lure the opposite suspect, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, onto a flight sure for El Paso, Texas, the place they have been finally arrested. Zambada is a co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel.
“‘El Mayo’ and Guzmán López be part of an more and more lengthy checklist of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates whom the Division of Justice holds accountable in america,” mentioned Lawyer Common Merrick Garland.
Listed below are a number of the males they be part of on that checklist:
José Antonio Yépez, “El Marro” (August 2020)
José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, arrested in August 2020 in Guanajuato, was thought-about by authorities to be the chief of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.
On the time, Mexico’s Secretary of Safety Alfonso Durazo confirmed Yépez’s arrest through his official Twitter account, noting that “El Marro” was detained underneath a warrant for “organized crime and gasoline theft.”
In January 2022, a court docket in Guanajuato sentenced Yépez to 60 years in jail for kidnapping, based on the State Lawyer Common’s workplace.
The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has generated most of its earnings by means of gasoline theft and extortion, based on Mexican authorities. “El Marro” had been hunted for months, with authorities concentrating on his household and shut associates amid a surge in violence in Guanajuato, an space managed by the cartel.
Rafael Caro Quintero (July 2022)
Rafael Caro Quintero, one of many FBI’s most wished fugitives, was arrested in July 2022 by the Mexican Navy, having been on the run since 2013.
Born in 1952, Caro Quintero based the now-defunct Guadalajara cartel within the Seventies with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and different drug traffickers, based on the US State Division. He’s allegedly accountable for the cultivation, cargo, and distribution of enormous quantities of marijuana in Mexico.
An extradition order to america is pending towards him. Nonetheless, in July 2022, a choose quickly suspended the extradition course of. Caro Quintero is accused of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985.
Ovidio Guzmán “El Ratón” (January 2023)
Ovidio Guzmán López, one other son of “El Chapo,” is believed to play a big function within the Sinaloa cartel, based on the US Division of the Treasury.
Guzmán was extradited from Mexico to the US in September 2023, as confirmed by the US Division of Justice. He faces expenses within the US for conspiracy to import and distribute medication, alongside along with his brother Joaquín Guzmán López.
In 2019, the Mexican authorities captured Guzmán in Culiacán, Sinaloa, however later launched him amid a tense state of affairs between authorities forces and armed teams loyal to his group. In October of that 12 months, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador admitted his authorities had ordered the discharge, stating that it had prevented “a massacre.” Guzmán López was later recaptured on January 5, 2023, in a raid in Sinaloa, based on Mexican authorities.
His protection has requested further time to evaluate paperwork introduced by US prosecutors throughout a latest listening to regarding the expenses towards him. In response to the case file, the defendant’s attorneys sought a evaluate underneath Rule 16, which mandates data alternate between attorneys and prosecutors for trial preparation. Consequently, a brand new listening to has been scheduled for October 1.
Néstor Isidro Pérez “El Nini” (November 2023)
Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas was arrested in November 2023 in Culiacán and subsequently extradited to america. The US considers him one of many leaders of the Sinaloa cartel and linked with the safety equipment of Los Chapitos, a faction of the cartel related to the youngsters of El Chapo.
Pérez faces expenses in two federal indictments. The primary, within the District of Columbia, contains cocaine and methamphetamine importation, firearm possession, and conspiracy to hinder justice by means of homicide.
The second, within the Southern District of New York, accuses him of main a prison enterprise accountable for a number of deaths – together with of a DEA informant – fentanyl trafficking, obstruction of justice by means of the homicide of an informant, kidnapping with deadly outcomes for eight folks, together with a minor, and cash laundering.
On Could 30, Pérez pleaded not responsible to the costs he faces in New York.
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López (July 2024)
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested on Thursday, July 25, 2024, in El Paso, Texas, alongside Joaquín Guzmán López, 38, son of El Chapo. Each are in US custody, based on the Division of Justice.
Zambada is taken into account by US authorities to be the present chief of the Sinaloa cartel. His title has appeared in drug trafficking recordsdata for years, however there are not any identified expenses towards him in Mexico.
The US Division of Justice acknowledged that each face a number of expenses “for main the cartel’s prison operations, together with its lethal fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.”
Authorities had been trying to find Zambada for years, and in 2021 elevated the reward for data resulting in his arrest to $15 million.
On July 26 Zambada pleaded not responsible to drug trafficking expenses in america.
