A Fake Trip and a Stunning Betrayal Landed Top Cartel Leaders in U.S. Hands

The arrest in the United States of two top leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel came after what initial accounts suggest was a dramatic betrayal that saw one of the men, a son of the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, lure the other under false pretenses onto a plane that delivered them both into the hands of American law enforcement.

One of the operatives taken into custody, Ismael Zambada García, was arguably the most powerful criminal in Mexico, a septuagenarian kingpin who helped to found the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo decades ago and remained at large even after his partner was extradited to the United States and convicted at a trial in New York City.

The other was one of El Chapo’s own sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, who with his brothers had inherited a large swath of their father’s illicit business moving massive amounts of cocaine and fentanyl into the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

The two men were arrested at a small local airport outside of El Paso, Texas, on Thursday afternoon after their Beechcraft King Air plane landed there on a flight from Mexico, U.S. officials said.

Mr. Guzmán López had persuaded Mr. Zambada García to join him on the flight by saying they were going to look at real estate, officials said, but the plane instead headed north across the border.

While American law enforcement agents had been quietly trying to persuade Mr. Guzmán López to turn himself in almost from the moment that his father, Joaquin Guzman Loera, was found guilty in 2019, it was not immediately clear why he decided to surrender himself and Mr. Zambada García to U.S. officials on Thursday.

But the arrests were hailed by officials in Washington as a major victory for U.S. law enforcement, which has accused Mr. Guzman’s sons, known collectively as the Chapitos, for being among the world’s leading smugglers of fentanyl.

“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement on Thursday. “The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”

On Friday, a federal judge in El Paso, Texas ordered that Mr. Zambada García be detained without bond and set a detention hearing for July 31 at 11 a.m. Mr. Zambada Garcia, who waived his right to appear at his arraignment on Friday morning, entered a plea of not guilty.

Mr. Zambada García has never spent time in jail in either the United States or Mexico, unlike his top ally, El Chapo, who managed to break out of prison twice in Mexico. After being convicted in federal court in the U.S. on drug conspiracy charges in 2019, he is serving a life sentence in the nation’s most secure federal prison, in Florence, Colo.

Mr. Guzmán López is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Chicago in the coming days. He is said to have been elevated to a leadership role in the cartel along with his three other brothers after the extradition of his father to the United States in 2017. His brother Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested in Mexico and extradited last September to Chicago, where he is expected to stand trial.

While the successful case against El Chapo was a major step in American efforts to pursue cartel leaders, the U.S. authorities had struggled for years to secure a case against Mr. Zambada García. Although they had caught him extensively on wiretaps over the years and came very close to apprehending him just before El Chapo himself was taken into custody, he had long remained an elusive figure, eschewing El Chapo’s need for the limelight and living a simple, almost rustic life in his compound in Sinaloa, known as El Alamo.

Known as a pragmatist, Mr. Zambada García had been in contact with U.S. federal officials on and off for at least three years, discussing the terms of his potential surrender, according to five people briefed on the matter.

But on Thursday, he was unaware he was headed to the United States when he boarded a private airplane with Mr. Guzmán López, who told him they were going to look at some real estate properties, according to two American law enforcement officials who were briefed on the situation.

According to some U.S. officials, Joaquin Guzmán López was trying to help his brother Ovidio, who was already in U.S. custody, when he invited Mr. Zambada García onto the plane. The move was seen by the officials as a way to offer American authorities the significant target they had long been seeking but could never quite get themselves.

While the relationship between Mr. Zambada García and Mr. Guzman reached back decades, it was solidified in the early 2000s, after Mr. Guzman escaped from custody the first time, wheeled out of the prison in a laundry cart.

The two men pledged themselves to one another, according to testimony at Mr. Guzman’s trial and entered into one of the most profitable and bloody partnerships in the annals of criminal history, involving international drug trafficking, mass murder and political corruption.

The arrest of Mr. Zambada García, long known as the most politically connected member of the Sinaloa cartel, is likely to alarm former officials from several past Mexican presidential administrations.

Falko Ernst, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said it was unlikely that the arrests would have a major impact on the smuggling of fentanyl or other drugs from Mexico, since the Sinaloa Cartel was a deeply decentralized organization already.

“We aren’t talking about a structure that depends on a few kingpins — it’s very diffuse and resilient to these kinds of hits,” Mr. Ernst said. If anything, he said, the move could spark more violence as factions vie for control amid a vacuum of power at the very top.

“There’s already a bunch of pressure on that structure and there has been a lot of infighting,” Mr. Ernst said. “So we’re definitely facing a scenario of greater violence, potentially.”

All four of El Chapo’s sons are facing charges in the United States, including the two who are still at large, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar.

Mr. Zambada García suffered a brutal public betrayal during El Chapo’s trial: His own son testified for the prosecution, offering a detailed account of many aspects of the cartel’s sprawling criminal enterprise. The son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, had been arrested by the Mexican authorities and extradited to the United States in 2010.

At the trial, Mr. Zambada Niebla demonstrated a mastery of the inner workings of the cartel empire, describing how his father had helped traffic tons of drugs through a vast network of smuggling routes and money laundering schemes.

His father’s budget for bribes was as high as $1 million per month, he said, and included payments to a military officer who once served as a personal guard to Mexico’s former president, Vicente Fox.

After the news of Mr. Zambada García’s arrest, Mexicans on social media began circulating an interview with the drug lord published by Proceso magazine in 2010. In it, Mr. Zambada García mused about what would happen if he ever turned himself in to the authorities.

“My case should be exemplary, a lesson for everyone,” he said, adding: “But after a few days, we learn nothing has changed.”

Referring to cartel bosses, he said: “Locked up, dead or extradited, their replacements are already out there.”

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.