A powerful Mexican drug cartel leader who eluded authorities for decades was duped into flying into the U.S., where he was arrested alongside a son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, according to a U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the matter. Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada got on an airplane to the U.S. believing he was going somewhere else, said the official, who spoke on the condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. The official did not provide additional details, including who persuaded Zambada to get on the plane or where exactly he thought he was going. Upon arriving in the El Paso area, Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of notorious drug kingpin “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison in 2019, were immediately taken into custody by U.S. authorities, officials said. Zambada, one of the most powerful drug lords in the world, has been a key target for the U.S. government for years in its bid to take down leaders of the Sinaloa cartel that’s responsible for trafficking huge sums of drugs across the border. U.S. authorities had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to his capture. Zambada’s arrest “strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast,” said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram. “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday evening. A lawyer listed for Zambada did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that Mexico was still awaiting details about the arrest of the men and was not involved in the operation. He hailed the arrests, though he suggested others could step in to fill the vacuum. That’s why his administration has focused on addressing the root causes of drug use and the associated violence, he said. Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said the plane took off with only the pilot from the airport in Hermosillo, Mexico. The flight tracking service Flight Aware showed the plane stopped transmitting its altitude and speed for about 30 minutes while it was over the mountains of northern Mexico before resuming its course to the U.S. border. “It is a fact that one person went out from here, three people arrived there”, she said. Zambada is facing charges in a number of U.S. cases, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing enormous quantities of narcotics into the United States.” Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartel’s strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, “El Chapo.” 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 […]