Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.
In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.
“I’m terrified of being incarcerated,” Zambada said. “I’d like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.”
The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.
Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighbouring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.
Although little is known about Zambada’s early life, he is believed to have gotten his start as an enforcer in the 1970s.
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By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.
Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually, he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with “El Chapo” Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Zambada’s detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of “El Chapo” Guzmán, Ovidio Guzmán López. Zambada’s son pleaded guilty in US federal court in San Diego in 2021 to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.
In recent years, Guzman’s sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or “Chapitos” that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the US market.
They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.
Ovidio Guzmán López was arrested and extradited to the US last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.
Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA, said Zambada’s arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the US Joaquín Guzmán López was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos, Vigil said.
“This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I don’t think so,” Vigil said.
“It’s not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him,” Vigil said.
AP