US arrest of cartel chief ‘El Mayo’ leaves Mexico rattled

For almost 40 years Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García eluded authorities while the Sinaloa cartel he co-founded grew into one of the world’s most powerful drug trafficking empires. But that luck ran out in dramatic fashion last month at a country ranch in northern Mexico. Zambada says he was ambushed before a meeting with Joaquín Guzmán, whose father, fellow Sinaloa co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been jailed in the US. A hood was thrown over his head before he was bundled on to a private jet and tied down — allegedly by the younger Guzmán himself — on the three-hour flight to the airport outside El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by US officials, according to a statement from his lawyer to the media.