An entry in the US National Prison Registry (BOP) started the mystery. Ovidio Guzmán López, inmate number 72884-748, appears as “released” since July 23. The scandal came two days later. Unexpectedly, Ismael López The May Zambada, the Sinaloa Cartel’s drug lord, and Joaquín Guzmán López, Ovidio’s brother and El Chapo’s son, got off a Beechcraft 200 plane and were arrested at the rural airport in Santa Teresa, a town of 6,000 inhabitants in New Mexico. Amid the confusion and contradictory versions of the arrest, the information about the supposed release of El Ratón, as the 34-year-old drug lord is known, fueled suspicions. Mexican and U.S. authorities quashed the rumor the next morning and assured that Ovidio Guzmán was still detained and in Washington’s custody. A month later, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), which has begun its own investigation to clarify what happened in Mexican territory, cast doubt on the official version of its counterparts. The institution said in a statement that it was able to verify that he had been released, but acknowledged that it does not know where he is or what his legal situation is on the other side of the border.
The FGR went a step further and announced last Thursday that it was investigating whether the alleged release of El Ratón was related to the capture of El Mayo in the United States. In the days following Zambada’s arrest, at least three major theories came to light to explain how one of the most wanted criminals was able to travel to the most powerful country in the world without being detected, and then be arrested without a single shot being fired. The surrender: it was said that the 76-year-old boss had agreed to surrender due to his advanced age and deteriorating health. The deception: it was suggested that Joaquín Guzmán López, his godson, had convinced him to get on the plane under some ruse, such as a business trip. The betrayal: it was claimed that the head of the Sinaloa Cartel was kidnapped by his former partners and taken by force to be arrested. On August 11, Zambada published a letter detailing how he was tied up and subdued by Los Chapitos, the faction led by El Chapo’s sons, on the same day of his capture. A day earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico acknowledged that “evidence at the time of arrival indicates that El Mayo was taken against his will.”
In a surprising turn of events, the FGR took the hypothesis of treason as the main line of investigation in the case and last week accused Joaquín Guzmán López of the kidnapping of El Mayo. Jeffrey Lichtman, the lawyer for the Guzmán family in the United States, denied at the end of July that his clients had a collaboration agreement with the authorities and also dismissed the version of Zambada’s kidnapping, calling it a strategy orchestrated by his legal defense. Despite Lichtman’s position, by the time the accusation from the Mexican Prosecutor’s Office came out, the governments of the United States and Mexico practically assumed that Joaquín, alias The Güerohad been in secret communication with several US agencies and had been exploring the possibility of surrendering for years.
“It is also known that Ovidio was in communication with Joaquín Guzmán López,” says Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA. “Joaquín trusted his brother to turn himself in,” he says. The latest statement from the FGR on the unknowns surrounding Ovidio Guzmán gave strength to another theory: a negotiation between Los Chapitos and the United States to bring down El Mayo in exchange for El Ratón receiving judicial protection and benefits. In favor of this hypothesis is the supposed release of Ovidio two days before Zambada was captured. But it also clashes with Washington’s own official version of the arrest, assuring that they had no confirmation that El Mayo was one of the passengers on the plane until it landed. Vigil comments that this type of exchange “is not very normal” in the American security agencies. “It was a very difficult operation, even for a person like Joaquín Guzmán López,” says the former agent.
On Friday, it was leaked to the media that Ovidio Guzmán had entered the DEA’s protected witness program, but the information turned out to be false. It seemed unlikely that the anti-narcotics agency would make the arrangement public, at least at this point. El Chapo’s son was arrested in Culiacán, a stronghold of the Sinaloa Cartel, in January 2023 and extradited to the United States last September. He has a court hearing scheduled for late September in Chicago, where he faces charges including fentanyl trafficking, organized crime, money laundering and firearms possession, as does his brother El Güero. His court file has not been updated since June, but there is no record of any formal plea agreement being made in the file.
Furthermore, cooperators and protected witnesses are not released before betraying their former partners. This was not the case with Vicente Zambada Niebla. Vicentillothe son of El Mayo, who was key in bringing down El Chapo in the so-called trial of the century. This was not the case for Jesús The King Zambada, the kingpin’s brother who also testified against Guzmán and Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former anti-drug czar who was tried in New York last year. El Rey is still serving his sentence and Vicentillo was released in 2021, nine years after pleading guilty and two years after El Chapo was sentenced.
Vigil explains that collaborators are usually transferred to other locations, kept in custody, and subjected to lengthy interrogations, away from the gaze that can be found in a normal detention center to avoid putting the witness at risk. The location of the witness and the existence of agreements with the authorities are also not usually made public, much less when a case is “active,” he says. It cannot be ruled out that the Guzmán López brothers may decide to collaborate in the future with the American justice system or that they are already negotiating in this regard, as has also been reported in the Mexican media, but it is unlikely that it will be announced with great fanfare. The figure of the protected witness is designed to guarantee the safety of whoever decides to take the stand and that those interested in that testimony can present it in a trial.
Ovidio Guzmán is not the first Mexican drug lord to make headlines for appearing or “disappearing” in the prison system. On the same Friday, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the historic leader of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, was released after serving a 21-year sentence, but in the BOP registry he appeared with “unknown” status. The United States Department of Justice clarified that he had been released from prison, but added that it had not yet been decided whether he would remain in that country or be deported to Mexico. In November 2022, Édgar Valdez Villarreal, alias The Barbiealso “disappeared” from the prison system. “It is strange that someone announces that she is no longer on the prisoner registry, we want to know where she is and the inquiry has been made and there is no precision on the subject, but we will continue to ask to be informed,” declared President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the time. Barbie returned to the prison records, at least, since February 2023.
“There are several reasons why a prisoner may be listed as ‘not in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons,’” a spokesman for the US prison agency explained to EL PAÍS. “Prisoners who were previously in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons and who have not served their sentence may be out of custody for a period of time to attend court hearings, medical treatment, or for other reasons,” he added. In most cases, queries are made difficult because the personal i
nformation of those involved is considered.
The case of Ovidio Guzmán is striking because it is the FGR that is questioning his legal status and because the questions arise in the heat of another intrigue, a possible participation in the capture of Zambada. In that same statement, the Mexican authorities claimed that the United States had not provided key information for the case and the accusations have become more serious week by week.
The media war following El Mayo’s arrest – the intrigues, the contradictions, the incomplete versions, the conflicting statements – has found fertile ground in the gaps that the Mexican and American authorities have not been able or willing to fill, and has followed the course that the boss has wanted, who has pushed those margins with each statement. After five weeks, no agency has been able to give a conclusive version supported by evidence of how El Mayo fell along with the son of his historic partner. In the last corner of the case, another controversy is growing: the Mexican Prosecutor’s Office does not know where El Ratón is and no United States agency has come out to explain why he does not appear in the prison records.
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