For half a century, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada accomplished something almost unheard of for one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers: He helped run a multibillion-dollar criminal empire without spending a single day behind bars. That changed on July 25, 2024, when he boarded a private plane in Mexico and landed in New Mexico, where U.S. authorities were waiting.
What happened before that flight, who arranged it, and whether Zambada was betrayed by the son of his longtime partner Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán are at the center of Netflix's upcoming documentary series, The Fall of El Mayo (La caída de El Mayo), a three-part documentary which will premiere worldwide on October 29
