Moment Mexican drug lord El Mayo’s private jet arrives on what he thought was a real-estate viewing trip… only to be met with a very nasty surprise

Newly released photos show the moment the plane carrying Sinaloa Cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada arrives in the US, where he is met by federal agents who have come to arrest him.

Zambada, 76, founded the Sinaloa cartel with Mexico’s most famous lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is in the Alcatraz of the Rockies, ADX Florence, the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

A plane carrying Zambada and one of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, landed just outside El Paso, Texas, on Thursday.

The images shared by Homeland Security Investigations shows officers watching the plane land and then walking to the plane to arrest some of the world’s most dangerous drug traffickers.

The men were taken to El Paso to be imprisoned.

Zambada pleaded not guilty to the charges against him but failed to appear in federal court in El Paso, where a federal judge ordered him held without bail. New York Times reported.

Zambada will appear in court again on July 31 at 11 a.m.

Guzmán López is due to appear before a federal judge in Chicago in the coming days.

According to the Wall Street JournalZambada was tricked by El Chapo’s son Joaquin Guzman Lopez into boarding a private jet to inspect airports for drug planes, following a months-long operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI.

Zamabda thought the plane was flying to southern Mexico, but it landed in northern El Paso, Texas, where he and El Chapo’s son were arrested.

According to a Fox News correspondent, Guzman Lopez is said to have surrendered to US authorities and turned against Zambada because he “blamed Mayo for his father’s capture.”

Joaquín Guzmán Lopez is one of El Chapo’s sons and was appointed the drug cartel’s top leader in 2017 when his father was extradited to the US.

The pair were arrested in El Paso after disembarking from a private jet flown from Mexico by the FBI.

 Lopez cut a deal with American law enforcement to surrender and turn in Zambada at the same time, sourced told DailyMail.com.

What prompted Lopez turn himself in after years as most-wanted, and to take Zambada down with him, is unclear.

Zambada lived a simple life behind the scenes at his El Alamo compound, in contrast to El Chapo’s larger than life persona, and was suffering from diabetes.

He was reportedly in communication with American law enforcement for the past three years at least, discussing the possibility of surrendering, but neve did.

Zambada said in 2010 in a rare interview ‘I’d like to think so, that I’d kill myself’ if he faced police capture.

Lopez is expected to face the Federal District Court in Chicago in coming days, and  Zambada will go to New York.

Attorney-General Merrick Garland called the cartel one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world as he detailed the arrests.

‘El Mayo and Guzmán López join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates whom the Justice Department is holding accountable in the US,’ he said.

Garland said others from the cartel now behind bars included El Chapo and another of his sons and alleged leader of the Cartel, Ovidio Guzmán López. 

The alleged main hitman of the cartel, Néstor Isidro ‘El Nini’ Pérez Salas, was also in American custody, he said.

American federal prosecutors in February charged Zambada with conspiracy to make and distribute fentanyl, but he has never been behind bars.

The US State Department earlier put an up to $15 million bounty on Zambada’s head, for any information leading to his arrest or conviction.

A $5 million bounty was offered for Lopez’s arrest.

Joaquín’s brother Ovidio Guzmán López was also arrested in Mexico, and extradited to the US in September to face his own long list of charges. 

After El Chapo’s extradition, his criminal empire was inherited by four of his sons – known as Los Chapitos, or Little Chapos – who took over his faction of the cartel and became some of the biggest exporters of fentanyl to the US. 

El Mayo and Los Chapitos have had a fractious relationship since El Chapo’s extradition, and the arrests of the two traffickers may trigger instability or even violence in Mexico.

Garland said fentanyl was the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

‘The Department of Justice will not rest until every leader, member, and associate of the cartels responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,’ he said.

Zambada helped ‘El Chapo’ construct a network that has exerted its influence in illicit markets as close as the US and Colombia, and as far as New Zealand and Russia.

They distributed cocaine, heroin and other drugs while tapping into the lucrative human trafficking business.

Under the watch of the 76-year-old, the criminal organization has been able to haul in $11 billion based on seizures and pricing provided by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

‘El Mayo’ positioned himself as one of the richest men in the narcotics, earning $3 billion since 2001, despite his aversion to showing off his wealth.

Mike Vigil, who once led the DEA’s international operations, recognized ‘El Mayo’s’ business smarts as the head of a criminal syndicate that has spread its wealth and laundered its unlawful profits through international banks and companies.

The American agency tasked with battling drug smuggling and distribution has pointed out 250 business that have benefited from the Sinaloa Cartel’s illicit earnings.

They included a dairy company, water park and a daycare center allegedly operated by his daughter Maria Teresa.

‘Even though he’s only had maybe an elementary-school education, he’s received a Harvard-level education from some of the most prolific, knowledgeable and astute drug lords that Mexico has ever had,’ Vigil told Bloomberg in 2018.

In a 2010 interview with Proceso, ‘El Mayo’, admitted the possibility of being arrested created a sense of ‘panic’ despite how hard to he worked to maintain a low profile in public and wouldn’t rule out committing suicide if it meant avoiding doing time in jail.

‘I don’t know if I’d have the courage to kill myself. I’d like to think so, that I’d kill myself,’ he said.

A Sinaloa Cartel faction led by the sons of El Chapo has allegedly claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of 66 people in the northern Mexican city of Culiacán in March.

A series of narco mantas – or banners were found hanging from four highway overpasses and bridges before Tuesday morning’s rush hour traffic. 

The banners insisted the abductions were in response a rash of criminal incidents orchestrated by a home invasion gang, which some claim is led by law enforcement agents.

Each display featured a banner with a message signed off with the initials of El Chapo’s son, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, and had the pictures of the gang’s four leaders.

El Chapo, meanwhile, pleaded to have his his phone call and visitation rights reinstated at the ADX Florence super maximum security prison in Colorado.

The 67-year-old co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, who once boasted about being behind the killing of 3,000 people, moaned that he has been feeling lonely ever since his rights as a prisoner were stripped away in a letter he penned on March 20. 

His visitation rights and phone privileges – previously two calls a month – were canceled out when he was convicted, and his appeal was denied in April.

‘Sorry to bother you again with the request that I have asked you before with regards to my wife, Emma Coronel,’ Guzmán wrote in the letter.

‘I ask that you please authorize her to visit me and to bring my daughters to visit me, since my daughters can only visit me when they are on school break, since they are studying in Mexico.’

The former cartel boss showed his softer side despite proudly running a drug empire that saw thousands slaughtered – and millions more affected by his illegal wares. 

The former kingpin spends 23 hours locked in a 7-by-12-foot concrete cell with double doors in a section dubbed ‘Range 13.’

He is supervised round-the-clock and he is prohibited from mingling with the inmate population.

Guzmán has often complained of the jail conditions ever since he was found guilty in by a federal jury in February 2019 on 10 counts that included drug trafficking money laundering and the use of a fire arm to carry out crimes.

Guzmán was once consider the most powerful drug trafficker in the world – after Colombian Pablo Escobar.

He was extradited from Mexico in January 2017 after he was recaptured in January 2016 following his second prison escape in June 2015 via a tunnel that his organization had constructed underneath the jail. 

Before that, he had been on the run for 13 years after he snuck out of prison on a laundry cart in January 2001.

His wife was released from US federal custody in September 2023 after she completed 31 months of a 36-month sentence that was handed down by a Washington DC federal court in November 2021 after she pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering.