Mayito Flaco’s hidden past in the US: El Mayo’s son was born near Disneyland and changed his name in Arizona

In the early 1980s, the surname Zambada did not openly resonate in the drug-trafficking world. That allowed Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, patriarch of the criminal dynasty, to move through California without worrying too much about hiding his tracks. He was 32 then and beginning to weave a network of warehouses, transporters, distributors, customers, and money launderers. Over time, the Los Angeles metropolitan area would become the Sinaloa Cartel’s main hub in the United States for drug distribution and collection of illicit proceeds. El Mayo has been serving a life sentence imposed by a New York judge since July.

In March 1982, having never set foot in a jail until then — a record he would maintain for the next four decades — El Mayo did not hesitate to have his real name recorded on the birth certificate of one of his sons, Ismael Zambada Sicairos. But there was a discrepancy in the registry: Cicairos, with a “c,” was entered as the newborn’s second name. That appears in documents held by the Orange County, California, registrar’s office reviewed by EL PAÍS.

In the name of the Sinaloa Cartel co-founder, the initial of his maternal surname was used as if it were his middle name, which is Mario and from which his infamous narco nickname derives. They listed him as: Ismael G. Zambada. This document is exceptional within the U.S. government database because it does not correspond to a criminal charge against him.

The mother, María R. Cicairos, 30, gave birth at 6.27 a.m. on March 7, 1982, at the Martin Luther King Medical Center, a hospital that was located on Romneya Street in Anaheim. The building now houses a community college. Mayito Flaco, as he would be nicknamed at the outset of his criminal career, was born a few miles from the Disneyland theme park, one of the emblems of American culture and “the happiest place on earth,” as it promotes itself worldwide. The coincidence is controversial. For reasons that are still unclear, the DEA kept the origin of this member of the Zambada family secret for many years; he would go on to inherit the criminal faction his father built through gunfire and bribery.

Two Orange County capos

Mayito Flaco is a California-made drug lord. The DEA alleges he took control of the faction of the cartel known as La Mayiza, or Los Mayos, around July 2024, when his father was detained in New Mexico after being kidnapped by his godson, Joaquín Guzmán López, at a ranch in Culiacán and forced, according to his account, onto a jet that took him across the border. That event unleashed an internal cartel war between La Mayiza and the group led by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Jesús Alfredo and Iván Archivaldo, the only two who remain at large. The brutality that seized the streets of Culiacán and other cities in northern Mexico appears to be headed toward one of only two possible outcomes: one side’s surrender, or its annihilation.

“Mayito Flaco retains command and control over Los Mayos and is responsible for directing the group’s criminal activities, including drug trafficking, murder, extortion, corruption, and kidnapping,” the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) stated when imposing sanctions against him and several alleged accomplices operating in Baja California, Mexico.

There is another cartel boss who is originally from Orange County: Juan Carlos Valencia González, identified as one of the leaders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). He assumed leadership this past February after military forces killed his stepfather and the group’s founder, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho.”

Sought by the DEA as a priority target, Valencia González was born on September 12, 1984, in a Santa Ana hospital, a little over 10 miles from the medical center where Mayito Flaco was born. Their births are only two and a half years apart. In Valencia González’s case, his biological father, Armando Valencia Cornelio — one of the founders of the Milenio Cartel, once linked to the Sinaloa Cartel — chose not to appear in the California government database.

There is no evidence that El Mayo Zambada and María Cicairos married in Orange County. Mayito Flaco’s birth certificate is one of the few public records that list both their names and their son’s, according to officials in that jurisdiction consulted by this newspaper. The document was filed on March 17, 1982, 10 days after the birth. Doctor J. N. Hernández provided assistance during the delivery. The day after the birth, according to public records, El Mayo’s then-partner was the only person to sign their son’s certificate.

From Ismael Cicairos to Fernando Sicairos

In 2001, when Mayito Flaco was 19, he lived in a middle-class community around 10 miles from downtown Phoenix, Arizona. He was another neighbor on Krall Street. That address appears in a filing he used to try to conceal his link to the cartel boss. He sought to avoid being found by his father’s enemies and by the authorities.

On November 1 of that year, a Maricopa County court judge granted his request for a name change. Since then, he has been registered as Fernando Sicairos Aispuro. But not even that legal step managed to completely erase his blood ties to El Mayo: on the document, Ismael G. Zambada still appears as his father and María Cicairos as his mother. The process concluded on May 10, 2022. That day, Mayito Flaco signed with his new identity. He scrawled an illegible signature, as if he were still not used to going by that name.

The name change makes it harder to locate his public records in California. Now, to access the few documents related to him, one must search under the identity he adopted 25 years ago.

“Despite attempts to obfuscate his cartel bloodlines by filing a U.S. name change to Fernando Sicairos Aispuro in 2001, Mayito Flaco has remained a key figure in the Sinaloa Cartel operations for the last two decades under his father’s tutelage,” OFAC said.

Nine months before Mayito Flaco petitioned a Phoenix court to change his name, his father had helped in the 2000 escape from the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco of the man who would become his main partner: El Chapo Guzmán. After escaping hidden in a laundry cart, the two embarked on building the Sinaloa Cartel, which became Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization.

By May 2005, aged 23, Mayito Flaco was already fully involved in his father’s criminal activities, along with his younger brother, Ismael Zambada Imperial, known as “Mayito Gordo.” A criminal indictment filed in 2014 in a U.S. federal court in San Diego, California, alleges that since then El Mayo and his two sons led a conspiracy to traffic large shipments of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana into southern California, in addition to participating in money-laundering operations.

Evidence gathered by the DEA office in San Diego identified that Zambada Sicairos also used the alias “Caballero.” The fall of three of his brothers paved the way for him to inherit the leadership of La Mayiza.

Mayito Flaco’s border strongholds

Orange County, where El Mayo Zambada decided his son would be born, is crossed from south to north by Interstate 5, a 1,380-mile artery that connects the border city of San Diego with Seattle. The boss and his partners helped turn it into one of the main routes for drug trafficking in the United States. Drug smuggling is so frequent that security forces conduct constant patrols on the highway and have stepped up inspections at road checkpoints. These operations are part of a unit made up of different law enforcement agencies, including the DEA, known as the Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA).

This criminal corridor traced by El Mayo Zambada begins in Tijuana and Mexicali, two of his faction’s main strongholds. The system of corruption he cemented years ago remains in place and now — according to OFAC — serves his son. Prominent in that network is Carlos Alberto Torres Torres, the ex-husband of Baja California governor Marina del Pilar, affiliated with the ruling party, Morena. The Treasury Department identifies Torres as a “political operator” for La Mayiza in the region. “Carlos Torres uses his political influence to facilitate cartel activities and protect the Sinaloa Cartel from government and law enforcement intervention in Baja California,” the department says.

The cancellation of Torres and Del Pilar’s visas in May was the first sign of the sanctions the Treasury announced last week, a move that could lead to investigations or criminal charges.

Lieutenants who control both border crossings through murders, kidnappings, attacks, and bribes; businesspeople who use their companies to launder and move illicit profits; and corrupt officials who provide political and police protection to the organization are all part of the structure that, according to the Treasury, operates under the command of Mayito Flaco. On September 28, OFAC imposed sanctions on the leader of La Mayiza, 20 alleged accomplices, and 25 companies, including currency exchange houses and firms in the security, real estate, and entertainment sectors.

One of those entities, Inteliproof Efficient, had contracts as a supplier of uniforms and tactical equipment to the Baja California state attorney general’s police department. Another sanctioned company, Festivales Artistas Mobiliario y Asesoría, also known as Promociones CHF de Baja California, was awarded several contracts by the state Tourism Secretariat for promotional work. Both belong to Marco Antonio Moreno Gómez Santelices, a businessman and speaker added to the U.S. Treasury’s blacklist last week. This action prohibits doing business with people and entities the department has designated for their alleged ties to organized crime.

Del Pilar’s government acknowledged its relationship with these suppliers and ordered an “exhaustive review” to rule out “any risk.” The governor’s office responded that the sanctions against the companies were not in effect when the contracts were signed and maintained that, at the time, they had complied with all guidelines.

But Mayito Flaco’s influence goes beyond money. According to OFAC, not even those operating on the U.S. side of the border escape the violence attributed to El Mayo’s heir. The agency notes that one of his associates, Lorenzo Castillo Maldonado, who is serving a long sentence in a Mexican prison, commands gangs that help him traffic drugs, launder money, and secure hitmen to kill his rivals in southern California.

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