On September 30, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) updated the search file for Ismael Zambada Sicairos, alias “Mayito Flaco” and son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, and revealed that Mexico City was his last known whereabouts.
The data confirms a pattern that has been repeated for more than 17 years within the Sinaloa Cartel: the country’s capital as a refuge and center of operations for its most wanted figures.
The most memorable case documented among the direct heirs of the organization is that of Vicente Zambada Niebla, “El Vicentillo”, eldest son of “El Mayo”, arrested on March 18, 2009 in the Lomas del Pedregal neighborhood.
Seventeen years later, the same city reappeared as the hideout of a top-level operator: José Ángel Rivera Zazueta, “El Flaco”, captured on September 22, 2026 in the Hipódromo neighborhood, Cuauhtémoc mayor’s office.
King Zambada also settled in the capital
The journalist Anabel Hernández has documented in her book Narcocracy, based on the testimony of Sergio Villarreal Barragán, “El Grande”, that control of the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) was already disputed by different factions of organized crime since before 2009. According to this story, cocaine and chemical precursors hidden in luggage and air cargo from South America, Europe and India entered there.
The testimony collected by Hernández maintains that factions such as Mayo Zambada himself, his brother Jesús “Rey” Zambada, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, Barbie and El Indio had a direct interest in controlling that terminal, through alleged bribes to customs officials, Federal Police, AFI, airport and immigration personnel.
According to documents, El Rey Zambada operated from the Lindavista area, near the airport itself, with warehouses, offices and safe houses from where drug shipments and distribution were coordinated. His capture, in October 2008, preceded that of Zambada Niebla by just five months and marked the beginning of the open war between the Beltrán Leyva and the Mayo and “El Chapo” Guzmán factions.
