Ismael Mario Zambada García (born January 1, 1948) is a Mexican drug lord, co-founder and current top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate based in Sinaloa. Before assuming control of the entire cartel, he is said to have served as a logistics coordinator for the Guzmán-Zambada organization, which oversaw the trafficking of cocaine and heroin to Chicago and other US cities by plane, narcosubs, container ships and fast boats. , fishing vessels, buses, railway wagons, tractors and cars. As of early 2024, he has never been arrested or imprisoned and is the last remaining fugitive from the List of Mexico’s 37 Most Wanted Drug Lords (2009).
Career
Zambada has historically worked closely with the Juárez Cartel and the Carrillo Fuentes family, while maintaining independent ties to Colombian cocaine suppliers.
In 1989, when Mexican drug lord Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was arrested, his organization split into two opposing factions: the Tijuana Cartel whose leadership was inherited by his cousins and heirs, the Arellano Félix brothers, and the Sinaloa Cartel whose leadership fell to former lieutenants Héctor. Luis Palma Salazar, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán Loera (El Chapo). The drug lords of the Sinaloa Cartel operated in the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo León and Nayarit.
Zambada has been wanted by Mexico’s attorney general’s office since 1998, when it issued bounties totaling $2.8 million to him and five other Juárez cartel leaders.
In 2006, President Felipe Calderón’s government launched an offensive against Mexico’s drug trafficking networks. The Tijuana Cartel, the largest and most advanced Mexican cartel at the time, bore the brunt of the blows. Taking advantage of the pressure placed on the Tijuana Cartel, other drug bosses, most notably Ismael Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán, began to penetrate strongholds in northwestern Mexico, leading to a full-scale war.
Zambada’s organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, receives multi-ton quantities of cocaine, mainly by sea, from Colombian sources. It uses various methods, including planes, trucks, cars, boats and tunnels, to transport the cocaine to the United States. Cartel members smuggle the cocaine to distribution cells in Arizona, Atlanta, California, Illinois and New York. Zambada has been primarily active in the states of Sinaloa and Durango, with influence along much of Mexico’s Pacific coast, as well as Cancun, Quintana Roo, Sonora and Nuevo Leon.
In 2007, Zambada was featured on America’s Most Wanted, and the FBI offered up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
In 2011, Zambada was thought to have undergone plastic surgery and disguised himself to move across Mexico. Zambada led the Sinaloa Cartel in partnership with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán until 2016, when El Chapo was captured. Zambada is believed to have assumed full command of the Sinaloa Cartel since 2016 and is Mexico’s most enduring and powerful drug lord.
In 2019, his son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, testified against Joaquín Guzman Loera, recounting his father’s shipment of tons of drugs, and “that his father’s bribery budget was often as much as $1 million per month, with bribes sent to many colleges used to go. level of Mexican officials.”
Personal life
Zambada is married to Rosario Niebla Cardoza. He has four sons and four daughters. His wife and sons, Serafín Zambada-Ortiz (alias “el Sera”, arrested and released as of 2018), and Ismael Zambada-Imperial (alias “el Mayito gordo”, convicted), as well as his four daughters, María Teresa, Midiam Patricia, Mónica del Rosario and Modesta have played an active role in narcotics distribution and money laundering. On March 18, 2009, his son Vicente Zambada Niebla was arrested by the Mexican army. His other son, Ismael “Mayito” Zambada Jr., is wanted for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance in the United States.
On October 20, 2010, some of his relatives were arrested in Mexico City on drug trafficking charges: Ismael’s brother, Jesus “The King” Zambada, along with Ismael’s son and nephew.
On June 18, 2014, his son-in-law, Juan Gabriel González Ibarra, husband of Midiam Patricia, died after an electric shock in his home in Culiacán.
In June 2020, former DEA agent Mike Vigil revealed that Zambada was “sick with diabetes.”