Recently, I was reviewing how the landscape of drug trafficking in Mexico has evolved, and I was surprised to see the pattern left by three figures: El Chapo Guzmán, El Mayo Zambada, and El Mencho Oseguera. If there were a podium for Mexican organized crime, these three would occupy the top spots. The interesting part is that each one fell in a completely different way, and that says a lot about how the game has changed over the years.

Let's start with El Chapo, who was practically the media symbol of drug trafficking. Joaquín Guzmán Loera had a story of capture and escape that seemed straight out of a movie. First, he was caught in 1993 in Guatemala, but he escaped from Puente Grande prison in 2001 inside a laundry cart. Then he was re-captured in Mazatlán in February 2014, but surprise: he escaped again in 2015 through a 1.5-kilometer tunnel. News about El Chapo dominated headlines constantly. The third and definitive capture was in January 2016 in Los Mochis, and this time there was no escape: he was extradited to the United States in 2017. In New York, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019. His case was the most media-covered of the three.

El Mayo Zambada was completely different. For decades, he was one of the historic leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, but he maintained such a low profile that almost no one saw him. While El Chapo was the public face of the business, El Mayo operated in the shadows. What’s surprising is that he managed to avoid prison longer than any other major capo. Until July 2024, when U.S. authorities confirmed his detention in Texas. According to the Department of Justice, he arrived on a private aircraft along with Joaquín Guzmán López, Chapo’s son. The FBI and DEA had offered millions in rewards for his capture, so imagine the level of secrecy he maintained.

El Mencho Oseguera was another case. This guy led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and didn’t hide. He had an extremely violent profile, even shooting down a military helicopter in 2015. The United States offered $15 million for information about him. But in February 2025, during an operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, federal forces directly confronted him. He was wounded and died during air transport. His death triggered drug blockades in several states.

What caught my attention is how each fall reconfigured Mexican drug trafficking. When they captured El Chapo in 2016, the Sinaloa Cartel split into two main factions: Los Chapitos and La Mayiza. Then, the arrest of El Mayo in 2024 reorganized everything again. And with El Mencho’s death, CJNG was left without clear leadership. These are three breaking points that demonstrate how the fight against drug trafficking shifted from media spectacle to coordinated operations with international cooperation. The game has changed, but the business continues.