Zambada has historically worked closely with the Juárez Cartel and the Carrillo Fuentes family, while maintaining independent ties to Colombian cocaine suppliers.[6]
In 1989, when Mexican drug lord Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was arrested, his organization split into two opposing factions: the Tijuana Cartel whose leadership was inherited by his nephews and heirs, the Arellano Félix brothers and the Sinaloa Cartel whose leadership fell to former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, Ismael Zambada García and Joaquín Guzmán Loera (El Chapo).[7] The Sinaloa Cartel drug lords were active in the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo León, and Nayarit.[8]
Since 1998, Zambada has been wanted by Mexico's attorney general's office, when it issued bounties totaling $2.8 million USD on him and five other leaders of the Juárez Cartel.[9]
In 2006, the administration of President Felipe Calderón launched an offensive against Mexico's drug trafficking networks.[10][11] The Tijuana Cartel, the largest and most sophisticated of the Mexican cartels at the time, received the brunt of the blows. Taking advantage of the pressure being placed on the Tijuana Cartel, other drug bosses, most notably Ismael Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán, began to encroach on strongholds in northwestern Mexico, leading to full-scale war.[citation needed]
Zambada's organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, receives multi-ton quantities of cocaine, mostly by sea from Colombian sources. It uses a variety of methods, including airplanes, trucks, cars, boats, and tunnels to transport the cocaine to the United States. Members of the cartel smuggle the cocaine to distribution cells in Arizona, Atlanta, California, Illinois, and New York.[12] Zambada has been operating primarily in the States of Sinaloa and Durango, with influence along a large portion of Mexico's Pacific coast, as well as in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Sonora, and Nuevo Leon.
Ismael Zambada's wanted poster in the 2000s
In 2007, Zambada was featured on America's Most Wanted,[13][14] and the FBI has been offering up to US$5 million for information leading to his capture.[12]
In 2011, it was thought Zambada may have had plastic surgery and disguised himself to move throughout Mexico.[15] Zambada headed the Sinaloa Cartel in partnership with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán until 2016, when El Chapo was captured. Since 2016, Zambada is thought to have assumed full command of the Sinaloa Cartel and to be Mexico's most enduring and powerful drug lord.[9]
In 2019 his son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, testified against Joaquín Guzman Loera and recounted the shipment of tons of drugs by his father, and "that his father’s bribery budget was often as much as $1 million per month, with bribes going to many high-level Mexican public officials."[16]
Zambada is married to Rosario Niebla Cardoza. He has four sons and four daughters. His wife and sons,[17]Serafín Zambada-Ortiz (alias "el Sera", as of 2018 arrested and released),[18] and Ismael Zambada-Imperial (alias "el Mayito gordo", convicted),[19] as well as his four daughters, María Teresa, Midiam Patricia, Mónica del Rosario, and Modesta, have played an active role in narcotics' distribution and money laundering.[20] On 18 March 2009, his son Vicente Zambada Niebla was arrested by the Mexican Army. His other son, Ismael "Mayito" Zambada Jr. has been sought for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance in the United States.[21]
On 20 October 2010, some of his relatives were arrested in Mexico City on drug trafficking charges: Ismael's brother, Jesus "The King" Zambada, along with Ismael's son and nephew.[22]
On 18 June 2014, his son-in-law, Juan Gabriel González Ibarra, husband of Midiam Patricia, died after suffering an electric shock at his home in Culiacán.[23]
In June 2020, former DEA agent Mike Vigil revealed that Zambada was "sick with diabetes."[24]
