2 Top Leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Including ‘El Mayo,’ in U.S. Custody

American law enforcement officials arrested two top leaders of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most dominant criminal organizations in Mexico, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

The two operatives, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán López, are among the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico and command massive transnational cocaine and fentanyl businesses that move narcotics into the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

The Sinaloa Cartel they help lead is one of the two biggest drug trafficking groups in Mexico, and is among the most sophisticated and dangerous criminal enterprises in the world. Both men were in custody in El Paso, Texas.

“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.”

Mr. Zambada García, 76, who is known as “El Mayo,” has been pursued by the U.S. government for years as a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel and has been charged in several federal indictments stretching back more than two decades.

Mr. Guzmán López is a son of the notorious crime boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, and is said to have been elevated to a leadership role in the cartel along with his three other brothers after the extradition of his father to the United States in 2017. His brother Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested in Mexico and extradited to stand trial in Chicago in September.