ASSESSMENTS

In Mexico, What To Expect Following the Arrests of Two Major Drug Lords

Jul 26, 2024 | 20:23 GMT

The front pages of Mexican newspapers showing the news of the capture of cartel leader Ismael ''El Mayo'' Zambada are seen in Mexico City, Mexico, on July 26, 2024.
The front pages of Mexican newspapers showing the news of the capture of cartel leader Ismael ''El Mayo'' Zambada are seen in Mexico City, Mexico, on July 26, 2024.

(RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP via Getty Images)

In Mexico, the arrest of two major Sinaloa Cartel leaders will almost certainly trigger retaliatory violence nationwide against local civilians and authorities, as well as potentially U.S. targets, in the coming weeks, while the group's potential consequent fragmentation would shift the country's criminal landscape. U.S. authorities arrested Sinaloa Cartel co-founder and leader Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as El Mayo, in El Paso, Texas, on July 25 in the culmination of a months-long joint operation between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The operation tricked El Mayo into boarding a plane that he thought would bring him to clandestine airfields in Mexico to inspect for use in drug trafficking operations, but the plane instead landed in Texas, where U.S. agents immediately arrested him. During the operation, U.S. agents also arrested Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzman,...

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