NEW YORK—The son of one of the Sinaloa cartel leaders, Vicente Zambada-Niebla, wanted to quit the world of drug-trafficking since he was young. He had become tired of the life of violence being the “right-hand man” of his father Ismael Zambada Garcia or “Papa Mayo,” who was one of the bosses of the notorious cartel.
In 2007, when Zambada-Niebla was about 32, he finally decided to ask permission to retire from the cartel and live his own life. At the time, he was in charge of drug trafficking for his father and his father’s partner, who he refers to as “mi compadre” or “my buddy or my son’s godfather,” Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, making him a more wanted figure with the Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA).
