US News: The United States Department of Justice said that two top leaders of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel were arrested on Thursday in Texas. The two leaders who were arrested included the co-founder of the drug cartel Ismael Zambada Garcia.
Terming the cartel "one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organisations in the world," Attorney General Merrick Garland said, "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," as quoted by news agency AFP.
Garland also said that the duo faces "multiple charges in the US for leading the Cartel's criminal operations, including its deadly drug fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks."
The United States witnessed more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Out of the total number of deaths, fentanyl accounted for about 70 percent of them.
The Joe Biden-led US government said that fentanyl is often made from products sourced in China and then is smuggled across the border from Mexico by drug traffickers, especially the Sinaloa cartel, AFP reported.
Zambada, who is believed to be in his 70s, and Guzman Lopez, who is in his 30s, were detained after they landed in a private plane in the El Paso area, two U.S. officials told news agency Reuters.
One of four sons of El Chapo, Guzman Lopez, known as Los Chapitos, or Little Chapos, inherited their father's faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. His brother, Ovidio Guzman, was arrested last year and extradited to the US.
The US authorities had a USD 15 million reward for Zambada's capture, while Guzman Lopez had a USD5 million bounty on his head, Reuters reported.
The Sinaloa cartel traffics drugs to more than 50 countries around the globe and is one of the two most powerful organised crime groups in Mexico, according to the authorities.