WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Friday welcomed the arrests of two notorious leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel as details emerged of an elaborate ruse used to capture the drug kingpins.

Ismael Zambada Garcia, co-founder of the cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other co-founder, were taken into custody in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday.

Biden described the pair as “two of the most notorious leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel” and said US authorities “will continue doing everything we can to hold deadly drug traffickers to account and to save American lives”. “Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl,” he said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he expected a “complete report” from the United States on how the men were taken into custody. “There must be transparency,” he told a news conference.

US media quoted law enforcement sources as saying the arrests were the result of a sting operation in which Zambada was unwittingly lured across the border by Guzman Lopez.

A US law enforcement official said the authorities exploited the “rift” in the cartel to capture Zambada.

The official said Zambada boarded a plane with Guzman Lopez for a flight that he believed was intended to inspect property in Mexico near the US border.

Instead, the plane landed in the Texas border town of El Paso where both men were arrested.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2024