Lawyer: Jando Not Arrested After Mayo Flight
New York Attorney Jonathan Savella represents the pilot of the Chapitos
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The 32-year old Sinaloan pilot known as “El Jando” (pronounced Hando) confessed in a statement to a U.S. court in April that he worked with the Sinaloa Cartel for over a decade, flying planes with hundreds of kilos of cocaine and with shipments of guns, and overseeing a fleet of aircraft “including Caravans, Pipers, King Air and Cessna 206’s.” He also ran communications for a section of the cartel and rose to report directly to Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, the son of El Chapo and leader of the Chapitos faction. His lucrative career came to an end in February 2025 when Mexican soldiers arrested him after a shoot out, and he was transferred into U.S. custody in August.
Jando gained real infamy, however, this last month when it was alleged he was the pilot who flew the veteran kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada from Sinaloa to an airport in New Mexico after he was kidnapped on July 25, 2024. Federal agents arrested Mayo at the Doña Ana County airfield when he landed in a Beechcraft King Air and he was finally given a life sentence on Monday. Joaquín Guzmán López, another son of Chapo, was also arrested coming off the plane, confessed to kidnapping Mayo and is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors. The incident sparked a cartel civil war in Sinaloa, which has suffered more than 3,500 murders and thousands of disappearances since.
However, speaking by phone to CrashOut, Jando’s lawyer, Jonathan Savella, said that Jando was not booked or charged following Mayo’s abduction. “I can confirm he was not arrested that day. I cannot confirm his location that day,” Savella said.
The statement adds yet more mystery to the confounding case of Jando, the controversial cross-border kidnapping of Mayo, and how U.S. federal agents handled (or organized) it. Even Jando’s name is murky: he is identified as Mauro Alberto Núñez Ojeda (including in his indictment) but in some documents is called Alejandro Ojeda Ávila (and Jando could be short for Alejandro).
If Jando were indeed the pilot who flew Mayo into the hands of U.S. agents his journey is remarkable. He would have participated in a cross-border kidnapping yet been released by U.S. federal agents without charges and traveled back to Mexico. A U.S. court then issued a sealed indictment for him in January 2025, Mexican security forces arrested him that February and Mexico expelled him into U.S. custody as part of an extraordinary transfer of prisoners in August.
I asked Savella, the lawyer, about Jando’s potential cooperation with U.S. prosecutors to nail other narcos or corrupt politicians and how much prison time he would do. Savella replied that…
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