Inside the desperate hunt for El Chapo’s bloodthirsty partner El Mayo – who skinned rivals & ruthlessly turned on boss

AS a private plane lands on an airstrip in Texas, FBI gunmen with semi-automatic move in for the sting of the century.

On board is the alleged head of the ruthless and deadly Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael Zambada - known as El Mayo - who evaded arrest for decades despite a $15million bounty being placed on his capture.

The brutal leader - who has run the Mexican cartel since the arrest of long-term partner El Chapo - was arrested at the El Paso airstrip after flying into the US, yesterday.

Also arrested was El Chapo's 38-year-old son, Juaquin Guzman Lopez, another leading lynchpin in the Sinaloa cartel - which has been behind thousands of deaths in a blood-soaked history that stretches back to the drug wars of the 1980s.

A 2009 indictment claimed that El Chapo and El Mayo had "employed 'sicarios', or hitmen, who carried out hundreds of acts of violence, including murders, kidnappings, tortures and violent collections of drug debts, at their direction."

El Mayo, who's thought to be around 76, has miraculously managed to evade arrest since the 90s.

In a rare interview with Mexican magazine Proceso in 2010 he claimed he’d consider suicide to avoid jail, adding: “I’d like to think so, that I’d kill myself."

Now a final act of betrayal seems to have led one of the world's most wanted men into a well-laid FBI trap.

Officials said Zambada was "lured" onto a private plane under "false pretences" by Juaquin Guzman Lopez, the New York Times reports.

He apparently believed he was going to inspect clandestine airfields in Mexico but, after take off, the plane flew North to the US instead of heading South, following a months-long operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI.

It's though Joaquin was seeking revenge on El Mayo, who he blamed for his father's arrest and incarceration in 2019.

The arrests are a major coup for the US security services, who have been desperate to hunt down the elusive drug lord since the 1990s.

Years of bloody kidnappings, tortures & murders

The Sinaloa Cartel is an offshoot of the Guadalajara cartel and is one of the biggest and most powerful drug trafficking cartels in the world.

Notorious El Chapo and El Mayo are thought to have built it up after the Guadalajara cartel broke up, and its chilling reputation for violence has only grown since.

Sinaloa Cartel members have allegedly killed women and children, and have been known to rape family members of their rivals and force them to watch.

In 2010, a video even surfaced showing El Chapo beheading a rival with a chainsaw before cutting the face off the head and stitching it to a football.

Under El Mayo, the cartel was also renowned for its brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals.

The Sinaloa Cartel is also known to favour dissolving the remains of their victims in vats of acid.

Built bloody empire with Chapo

El Mayo began his career as a farmer, but according to multiple reports, started dealing drugs at around 16 years old - eventually becoming linked to the Guadalajara Cartel.

Since it broke up, he's been heavily credited with building up the Sinaloa Cartel alongside El Chapo - right up until the latter's arrest.

Throughout his 2019 trial, El Chapo's defence team insisted that he had been framed by his partner and El Mayo was in fact the real cartel leader.

Hi lawyers accused Zambada of bribing the “entire” Mexican government in exchange for living openly without fear of prosecution.

In a recent Netflix docuseries, World's Most Wanted former DEA agents working on his case opened up on their 30-year hunt for El Mayo - and how he is believed to have sacrificed El Chapo in an attempt to save his own son from jail.

The documentary followed agents as they tried to track him down, with footage even showing them storming his home in the mountains - only to find it empty.

'He's more poisonous than a snake'

The US government offered a $15million (£12million) reward for any information leading to El Mayo's capture as they became more desperate to jail him.

A suspected member of the cartel, Eladio, who describes their 'boss' claimed El Mayo was "more poisonous than a snake".

in the documentary Eladio seen riding in the back of a pick-up truck with a rifle held up to him, before saying: "On this van I shoot down anyone. Right in the head, I never miss...

"I am Eagle One. I follow every order. I am happy to be part of the Sinaloa Cartel."

Victor Gerardo Garay Cadena, who was formerly in charge of the federal police anti-drug unit, said: "He is the mastermind of the drug business here in Mexico." 

Meanwhile a Mexican journalist added: "Mayo is well known that when he's angry, it's better for you to hide wherever you can...

"If they want you dead, you're going to be dead."

Cartel 'bought police force' to avoid arrest

David Lorino, an ex special agent in Chicago's DEA, managed the agents that put the case against El Mayo together.

He explained they began their hunt for him by buying drugs on street corners, before listening into phone calls and tracking the chain back up to Mayo and Chapo.

Meanwhile former special agent Jack Riley, who was part of the hunt for him, revealed that their main tactic was to focus on his son and brother - who are "less cautious when using phones".

They started monitoring his brother Jesus 'El Rey' Zambada's house in Mexico City on October 20, 2008, before a huge shootout and raid resulted in his arrest.

Desperate, El Mayo called the chief research officer of the federal police anti-drug unit - who had been working for the cartel in secret.

"Zambada was very well protected. Today we understand why - he was surrounded by policemen," Cadena revealed.

"Because he paid them, as the saying goes, money talks. The police is state-funded but drug dealers pay more.

"In most of my career, in some areas I've been, I noticed half of the officers were involved with them."

'Sacrificing' El Chapo for sake of son

When El Mayo's son Vincent - El Vicentillo - was also arrested, El Mayo was prepared to sacrifice his partner.

After holding El Vincentillo for two years in "complete isolation", agents persuaded him that he'd only ever be freed if he gave information on the cartel and their enemies.

"If we can take information from one bad guy, and take another bad guy out of business, is that a bad thing?" Lorino says.

"We told him, 'you're going to have to tell us about your dad and your dad's activities. That's your only option for probably ever seeing the outside of a jail cell again'."

Eventually, Mayo himself spoke to his son on the phone and apparently told him: "You do what you have to do son, to help yourself and your family."

Sure enough, Vicente spoke to officers and Riley explains: "He led to probably hundreds of arrests. He showed us how they operate."

Chapo, seeing the net closing in, reportedly began to make more public appearances.

"Towards the end, Chapo became stupid. He started going places he shouldn't and doing public things. Mayo was concerned that Chapo was going to lead to more heat for the organisation," Riley adds.

Eladio agrees on camera, saying: "He felt over-confident about his safety."

Power struggle

After El Chapo was jailed, a bitter power struggle broke out between his four sons - known as the Chapitos - and El Mayo.

In June 2020, a multi-hour shootout reportedly between the two sides outside Culiacán left 16 dead.

In February 2022, a convoy of trucks full of heavily armed men – reportedly loyal to the Chapitos – occupied the city of Caborca near the US-Mexico border, leaving two dead and at least five others kidnapped.

The Chapitos suffered a blow in January 2023, when third son Ovidio, the closest to Joaquin, was arrested in Culiacan, the state capital of Sinaloa after a shootout with army, in which seven soldiers were killed.

The violence that erupted in the streets after the arrest left at least 29 dead, with cartel gunmen taking shots at police and army troops and even bringing down a military helicopter. 

Ovidio was extradited to the US but Joaquin and his older brothers Ivan and Jesus continued to run factions of the cartel, despite a £20milion reward tag placed on them by US authorities.

Before this week's arrest Zambada and Guzmán López were among the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico, accused of commanding a massive cocaine and fentanyl trafficking operation that moves narcotics into the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

“The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world," The US Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.

"Ismael Zambada Garcia, or 'El Mayo,' cofounder of the Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other cofounder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas."

Both men are "facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartel’s criminal operations," including its "deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks."

While it's unlikely to spell the end of the powerful drug cartel, the jailing of El Mayo would certainly mark the end of an era - as the next generation of Capos take power.