EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A firestorm has been raging along the Mexican Pacific Coast since shortly after a rogue airplane made an unauthorized landing in a small New Mexico airplane west of El Paso last summer.
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The airplane carried Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, two major figures in the Sinaloa cartel. The third occupant was a pilot whose identity and nationality remain under debate.
Guzman surrendered to U.S. authorities upon landing at the Doña Ana County Jetport and is awaiting trial on federal drug and money laundering charges in Chicago. Zambada, who claims Guzman abducted him, last month pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges in New York.
Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada pleads guilty to trafficking in US
It was that abduction – treason among Mexican drug traffickers is punished with death – that has led to the murder of 1,800 people and the disappearance of hundreds in home of the Sinaloa cartel.
‘Welcome to Culiacan’
The violence began on Sept. 9, 2024, when armed civilians clashed with the Mexican army in a neighborhood in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan. Shootouts broke out throughout the city. Vehicles burned on the streets, schools closed, and the government canceled planned Independence Day celebrations.
More than 50 people were killed, and even more went missing that first week. Mutilated bodies were left on the streets, and a record 30 individuals were murdered on September 17…