CMexico City.- The United States has arrested Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, but Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office is considering filing treason charges against those who turned him in.
This is part of the long and strange trail of the historic leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who appeared unexpectedly in a plane that landed near El Paso, Texas, on July 25. The private plane flight was organized by another drug lord who decided to turn himself in.
U.S. authorities say Joaquín Guzmán López — son of jailed cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — flew to the United States to turn himself in but kidnapped Zambada before leaving Mexico and forced him onto the plane.
Instead of thanking the United States for capturing Zambada — whose cartel has been spreading violence and terror in Mexico for decades — the Attorney General’s Office is considering filing treason charges against Guzmán López or anyone else involved in the plot.
The Attorney General’s Office announced in a statement on Sunday afternoon that it had opened a criminal investigation “for the possible crimes of illegal flight; illegal use of air facilities; violation of immigration and customs legislation; kidnapping; treason and whatever else may arise.”
The strange response to the capture of a drug trafficker for whom a $15 million reward was offered is based on an article in the Mexican federal penal code that establishes sentences of up to 40 years in prison for treason.
The article includes the traditional definitions of treason—attacking Mexico on behalf of a foreign power or serving a foreign army—but also establishes that “anyone who illegally deprives a person of his or her liberty in the national territory to hand him or her over to the authorities of another country or to transfer him or her out of Mexico for that purpose” commits treason.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador considers any US intervention an affront. In fact, on Monday he questioned the neighboring country’s policy of arresting drug cartel leaders. “Why don’t they change that policy?” he said.
Asked about the Zambada case — and the possible involvement of a regional leader of the ruling party in negotiations with drug traffickers — the president described the whole affair as a possible plot by some U.S. sectors to discredit him by linking his organization to drug lords.
Following the revelations made by Zambada in a letter released over the weekend, in which he claimed that he was betrayed by Guzmán López to be taken to the United States, López Obrador expressed his support for the decision of the Attorney General’s Office to take over the investigation into the arrest of the two drug lords.
During his usual press conference, the president recommended that the Mexican Attorney General’s Office ask the U.S. government to provide information on the whereabouts and nationality of the pilot who transported Zambada and Guzmán López.
“We don’t have all the information yet,” Lopez Obrador said, complaining about the lack of transparency of the U.S. authorities in the case, which he considered a “very delicate matter.”
The president recalled that the US Attorney’s Office admitted that it was in communication with Guzmán López, son of the imprisoned former drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, but indicated that it must be clarified since when they were in conversations, who the intermediaries were and with whom the agreement for the transfer on July 25 was made.
López Obrador acknowledged the respectful treatment of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who on Friday declared that Guzmán López handed over Zambada in an operation in which the United States government had not participated, but expressed doubts about his statements and said that in such cases “many interests intervene.”
The prosecution’s case involves Guzmán López, a member of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel known as “Los Chapitos,” and other people who participated in the handover of the 76-year-old kingpin, who for decades managed to evade authorities and who had never set foot in prison and was known for his corrupting power.
On Saturday, attorney Frank Pérez released a two-page, typewritten and unsigned document in which the drug lord said that after being summoned to a meeting by Guzmán López at an events center on the outskirts of Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, he was beaten, tied up and hooded before being put on a private plane that would take him to the United States, where he was handed over to authorities there while Guzmán López surrendered.
According to “El Mayo,” currently incarcerated and accused in U.S. courts of various drug trafficking charges, the meeting was attended by Iván Guzmán —another son of “El Chapo”—, the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha, and an elected congressman, who was murdered on the day of the arrest.
Rocha, who is a member of the ruling party, denied any ties to the two drug traffickers over the weekend and said he was not in Sinaloa on the day of their arrest.
López Obrador on Monday expressed his support for Rocha and called for clarification of the murder of elected deputy Héctor Melesio Cuén, who according to the state prosecutor’s office died in an attempted robbery.
Zambada is charged in the United States with several counts, including conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl. Authorities believe he was more involved in the cartel’s day-to-day operations than its best-known boss, “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019.
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