On July 25, 2024, the United States had a victory in arresting Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who is a founder of the Sinaloa cartel and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another founder. The United States stated that this would be a huge step forward in decreasing cross-border smuggling. Although at first glance this seems like an entirely positive thing, the situation is much more nuanced.
In the past two weeks since the arrest, there have been a lot of questions surrounding how the arrest happened so suddenly. According to Al Jazeera, US officials have spoken to journalists and the story is that Guzman Lopez was already planning to surrender but also wanted to bring Zambada down with him. Zambada’s lawyer Frank Perez has spoken out and stated that Guzman Lopez kidnapped him and Zambada did not surrender willingly to the US officials.
They are both being tried in United States courts. The fact that they may not have surrendered and may have been taken against their will is unlikely to change anything with their trial at the moment. The bigger issue is that it could cause instability in Mexico and potentially hurt Mexico-US relations. The Mexican government has been shocked by their arrests and the President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has requested the conditions of their arrests.
The United States commonly wil go after the head of a cartel in order to harm the structure of the cartel overall. The theory is that the cartel will fall apart without its leaders and eventually dismantle. Unfortunately, the reality of going after the leader is that there is more likely to be fragmentation that leads to a higher quantity of smaller sized cartels. The strategy has not proven to be actually effective in getting rid of cartels overall, and this situation is no different since the United States went after a key leader.
The arrests could worsen violence in Mexico because the Sinaloa cartel is not happy that two important members have been arrested. In the past, events like this have only worsened violence and uprisings from cartels. Due to the fact that Zambada was one of the founders of Sinaloa, there could be fighting within the cartel to decide who replaces Zambada’s role according to AP News. Since Sinaloa is such a prominent cartel, his arrest could cause a domino effect that could hurt the entire country of Mexico, given its sudden nature.
Right now the United States is painting the arrests as a huge win, but in reality they are not considering all of the necessary aspects. In the past arrests that have happened similar to this one have not stopped drug trafficking. Andres Villarreal, a journalist from Culiacan, Sinaloa, has stated that he believes that the place that Zambada holds can be filled again and that there will not be a change in the drug trafficking happening in the area. The impact of whether the arrest was a capture or a handoff is also really significant given that the United States is approaching a tense election where immigration and the southern border is bound to be a hot topic.
Written by Sirisha Kunamneni
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