The US ambassador to Mexico has acknowledged that drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia was brought to the United States against his will when he arrived in Texas in July on a plane along with fellow drug lord Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of the infamous cartel kingpin “El Chapo”.
Zambada Garcia’s lawyer had earlier claimed that El Mayo, 76, the longtime chief of the Sinaloa drug cartel, had been kidnapped from Mexico by Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms who flew him to the US against his will.
US Ambassador Ken Salazar said on Friday that “the evidence we saw … is that they had brought El Mayo Zambada against his will”.
“This was an operation between cartels, where one turned the other one in,” Salazar said, adding that no US resources were involved in El Mayo being brought into the country.
The Guzman family lawyer has denied a kidnapping took place and called it a voluntary surrender after extended negotiations.
The arrest of El Mayo has ignited fears in Mexico of a new wave of violence and instability, as well as possible deterioration of relations with the US as the ambassador’s statement came hours after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador complained “there is no cooperation” from Washington on clarifying the circumstances around the arrests of Zambada Garcia and Guzman Lopez.
“They have not given us sufficient information,” Lopez Obrador said at a news conference Friday.
Salazar said no US personnel, resources or aircraft were involved in the flight on which Guzman Lopez turned himself in, and that US officials were “surprised” when the elderly Zambada Garcia also showed up at an airport outside El Paso, Texas, on July 25.
Zambada Garcia’s faction of the Sinaloa cartel had been engaged in fierce factional fighting with El Chapo’s sons, including Guzman Lopez, who is the half-brother of the faction’s leaders.
