What is the Sinaloa drug cartel?

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada is the biggest drug trafficker in the world, and his Sinaloa cartel is the top supplier of drugs to the United States, according to the US Department of Homeland Security. But how did the cartel gain so much power?

It was founded at the end of the 1980s in the Mexican state of the same name, Sinaloa. Together with the neighboring states of Durango and Chihuahua, the region is known as the "Golden Triangle" of drug trafficking.

Zambada is believed to be one of the cartel's founding members. Together with the sons of another cartel co-founder, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, he is said to have controlled the organization.

Guzman is notorious for his spectacular prison escapes. First arrested in Guatemala in 1993, he was extradited to Mexico and sentenced to 20 years and nine months in prison. In early 2001, he escaped from the Puente Grande maximum security prison in the Mexican state of Jalisco in a laundry van.

He was arrested again in 2014 and escaped a year later through a tunnel from the Mexican maximum security prison in Mazatlan, Sinaloa. In 2016, six months after his second escape, he was arrested for a third time by Mexican investigators and extradited to the US a year later. He is now being held in the ADX Florence maximum security prison in the state of Colorado.

Zambada's arrest this month was the result of a successful ruse by law enforcement, according to media reports. The 76-year-old boarded a private plane on the advice of a high-ranking cartel member with the intention of inspecting illegal drug cultivation fields in Mexico. But instead of flying south, the plane headed north and landed in El Paso, Texas. There, Zambada and Guzman's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, were arrested by US authorities on July 25.

Beating the competition

As a result of the the fight against Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s by US law enforcement, Mexico emerged as a new drug supplier for the US. The hallmarks of the Sinaloa cartel were the construction of tunnels for smuggling and the widespread use of bribes.

During the 1990s, the Mexican government's intensified fight against the drug trade led to fragmentation of the cartels. Sinaloa was able to assert itself against competition from other cartels in Tijuana and Juarez.

Enormous profits

The cartel is divided into four factions. One was under the control of Zambada. The second division is led by Guzman's sons, "Los Chapitos." The third was headed by Guzman's brother, Aureliano. And the fourth by Rafael Caro Quintero, who was arrested in northern Mexico in 2022.

In the latest annual report from the US Drug Enforcement Administration last May, the criminal structure is described as follows: "The Sinaloa Cartel does not have a leader. Instead, the cartel 'umbrella' covers four separate but cooperating criminal organizations." 

However, the report noted, "internal power struggles and fluctuating alliances leave the viability of the ‘umbrella model' in question."

Sinaloa now operates in more than 50 countries. The focus is on the US, where the cartel controls the majority of drugs smuggled illegally from Mexico, particularly marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. The annual profits are estimated to range from $3 billion to $39 billion (€2.8 billion to €35.9 billion).

Fentanyl fever

The Sinaloa cartel is accused of being responsible, along with the new generation of the Jalisco cartel, for the illegal trafficking of fentanyl in the US. The synthetic opioid is a painkiller that is about 75 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and is increasingly being abused as a recreational narcotic in the country.

According to estimates by US authorities, around 70,000 people in the US died from the non-medical use of fentanyl in 2021 alone. This makes the opioid the leading cause of death in the US population between the ages of 18 and 45.

This article was originally written in German.