El Mayo Zambada was the last of the drug lords who drew the map of modern drug trafficking in Mexico. He was literally present in the creation of the cartel structure that has dominated Mexico since the late 1980s. His companions in those days are dead (Amado Carrillo, Ramón Arellano) or in prison (Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Joaquín El Chapo Guzman, Rafael Caro Quintero, Hector The Güero Palm).
El Mayo was the last one standing and that is why his arrest is significant. He had been in conflict for years with the sons of his former partner, El Chapo Guzmán, for control of the cartel. His son Vicente and his brother Jesús were key witnesses against Guzmán in his trial two years ago. That is why the great mystery of his arrest is not only why he would have turned himself in, but why he did it together with one of Guzmán’s sons. Not even a screenwriter of Narcos would have bought this plot.
The history of modern drug trafficking in Mexico is written in El Mayo. He worked in the Juarez Cartel with Amado Carrillo, The Lord of the heavens and then in the Guadalajara Cartel, with the undisputed “boss of bosses”, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. After his arrest in 1989, the organization of the cartels that dominated drug trafficking as the 20th century gave way to the 21st century took place.
Zambada, along with Guzmán and Palma, formed the Sinaloa Cartel, the Arellano Félix brothers from Tijuana and Carrillo consolidated the Juárez Cartel, while in Tamaulipas the Gulf Cartel was strengthened.
The struggles between these groups marked Mexico for decades and their evolution gave way to the violence unleashed two decades ago for the control of territories. The Zetas emerged from the Gulf, the Beltrán Leyva and the Jalisco Nueva Generación from Sinaloa. New bosses emerged, more bloodthirsty than their predecessors: La Barbie, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, Miguel Ángel Treviño, Nemesio Oceguera.
While all this was going on, El Mayo kept a low profile, allowing more attention to be focused on El Chapo Guzmán during his years on the run between 2001 and 2014. Following Guzmán’s arrest and extradition, conflicts in Sinaloa intensified between the Guzmáns and the Zambadas, but El Mayo seemed to remain aloof. His children drew more attention while the patriarch was said to be living a quiet existence on his ranch in Sinaloa, with alleged diabetes having him on the verge of retirement.
The only time Zambada made news was the interview he gave in 2010 to the founder of Process, Julio Scherer García. There he told the journalist that “if they catch me or kill me, nothing would happen.” This has been an irrefutable truth throughout four decades of the rise of drug trafficking in Mexico. The captures or deaths of the bosses have not weakened the business, it always finds a way to survive. If anything has happened, it is that changes in the leaders provoke more violence.
But in that interview, Zambada also told Scherer that “I’m terrified of being locked up” and that he would probably kill himself if caught.
That was a decade and a half ago. We don’t know what calculation changed in Mayo’s mind for him to now appear in the United States, either to turn himself in or knowing that he would be caught.
Surely El Mayo will be right again and nothing will happen with his capture. Blood will continue to flow in the Sinaloa Cartel’s disputes for control of drug trafficking and other criminal activities. But at the same time a chapter in the history of drug trafficking in Mexico is closing. The last of the great bosses has fallen.
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