The United States arrested Ismael ‘el Mayo’ Zambada, leader and co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, in Texas on Thursday, who had been wanted by the US authorities for decades and had a reward of 15 million dollars, according to the Department of Justice.

Along with Zambada, Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán, was arrested.

“The Department of Justice has arrested two other alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. Ismael Zambada García, or ‘El Mayo’, co-founder of the Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, son of his other co-founder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas,” the Department of Justice emphasizes in a statement.

The department highlights that both men “face multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartel’s criminal operations, including its lethal fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.”

In February, a New York prosecutor charged Zambada for the fifth time with the crimes of manufacturing and distributing fentanyl in the United States.

In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office raised the reward from 5 to 15 million dollars for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of Zambada, information that can be sent to the Department of Justice by phone, email and even social networks.

“Fentanyl is the most lethal drug threat that our country has ever faced, and the Department of Justice will not rest until every leader, member and associate of the cartel responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” the text highlights.

The Department of Justice, in addition, highlights the detention of other leaders and associates of the Sinaloa Cartel, such as: El Chapo; another of the sons of the Chapo and alleged leader of the Cartel, Ovidio Guzmán López; and the alleged main hitman of the Cartel, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas or ‘El Nini’.

Al Chapo Guzmán was arrested in Mexico in January 2016 after starring in two escapes in 2001 and 2015, and extradited to the United States in January 2017 where he was sentenced in July 2019 to life imprisonment plus an additional 30 years.

For its part, the Drug Control Administration (DEA) indicated that ‘May’ will “soon face justice in a court of justice in the United States.”

Regarding Joaquín Guzmán López, the DEA stressed that, in 2017, he and his brothers – known as ‘los Chapitos’, “allegedly took control of the Sinaloa Cartel after El Chapo was extradited to the United States.”

The arrest of ‘Mayo’ Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of ‘Chapo’ Guzmán, occurred through a betrayal that led them to think that they were inspecting airfields in Mexican territory instead of landing in American territory, where they were arrested, according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to U.S. National Security Investigations officials told the newspaper, Zambada and Guzmán López, alias ‘el Güero’, thought they were inspecting clandestine airfields in Mexico, but were taken to the vicinity of El Paso (Texas) where FBI agents were waiting for them.

The operation had been prepared for months and had various US federal agencies and agents armed with rifles. Zambada is one of the most wanted criminals in the United States, who had put a reward of 15 million dollars for information that led to his capture.

Agents of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office. (CBP) guarded this afternoon the private plane without a license plate in which Ismael ‘el Mayo’ Zambada, leader and co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, alias ‘el Güero’, two of the most wanted drug lords of the United States, were arrested.

According to EFE, the Beechcraft King Air plane was still in custody this afternoon after it was confirmed that the Mayo Zambada landed on it in U.S. territory bordering Mexico.

The scene of this arrest, surrounded by mystery, was the discreet private airport of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, in Dona Ana County, very close to El Paso (Texas).

Heavily armed police officers reduced on Thursday a man who claimed to be armed with a Kalasnikov and grenades when he barricaded himself in an apartment building in Hamburg with a hostage, who was suspected to be his mother, local media reported.

The newspaper Bild reported that, after ten o’clock at night in Germany (8 p.m. GMT), agents of the German special forces (SEK) entered the building on Fangdieckstrasse, in the Lurup neighborhood, located northwest of the port city of northern Germany, where the suspect was, which could have been reduced.

The local media reported that the man, apparently psychologically unstable at the time of starring in the event, strongly resisted the arrest.

In a first search, the agents did not find weapons in the house, according to the Bild.

According to this newspaper, it could not be confirmed whether or not the detainee was heavily armed, although the investigators were in charge of analyzing the place of the events.

For her part, the hostage was released even though she was in a state of ‘shock’, according to the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper.

A large police device had been deployed in the area of the event, which forced the authorities to cordon off the area.

There was also plenty of health personnel deployed to deal with the situation and the neighbors of the area were told to move away from the windows as a preventive measure.

Former President Donald Trump and the Vice President, Kamala Harris, are practically tied in voting intention ahead of next November’s elections, a poll by The New York Times and Siena College revealed on Thursday.

According to the survey, the Republican would lead with 48% support against the Democrat, who would get 47%, although the difference is so narrow that he would enter within the margin of statistical error, which is 3.4 percentage points.

Harris, the only candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, would thus improve the electoral prospects of the current president, Joe Biden, who resigned on Sunday to run for re-election due to internal criticism of his disastrous performance in the debate with Trump on June 27.

After that face-to-face, a Times and Siena poll revealed that Trump gave Biden a six-percentage-point advantage in voting intention, which made it practically impossible for the Democrat to raise the difference before November.

The new poll also shows that Harris would perform better than Biden among young voters and African-Americans, two sectors of the population disenchanted with the president’s management.

The survey was carried out between July 22 and 24 with a sample of 1,142 people.

CNN published on Wednesday another poll conducted by the SRS consultancy, according to which Trump has 49% support among registered voters from all over the country compared to 46% of Harris, also confirming that the race is tighter than when the Democratic candidate was Biden.

Harris has already secured the support of the delegates necessary to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention of August and his campaign has broken a collection record.

The Republican campaign predicts that Harris will have a “honeymoon” with polls and favorable media coverage for a couple of weeks, but then Trump will clearly lead the contest again.