The lawyer representing captured Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García has alleged that a son of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera “forcibly kidnapped” his client before he was put on a plane bound for the United States, where he was arrested last Thursday.
The version of events put forward by Frank Perez, a Texas-based lawyer, contradicts accounts that El Mayo Zambada was tricked into flying to the United States by Joaquín Guzmán López — one of El Chapo’s four living sons — or that the 76-year-old cartel leader decided to turn himself in to U.S. authorities.
Zambada and Guzmán López were arrested at the Doña Ana County International Jetport near El Paso, Texas, after flying into the United States on a private plane. The two men face a range of criminal charges related to their alleged cartel activity. Zambada pleaded not guilty to all charges last Friday.
The alleged kidnapping of El Mayo
Perez said in a statement that Zambada “neither surrendered nor negotiated any terms with the U.S. government” before he flew into the Doña Ana County airport, located about 25 kilometers northwest of El Paso near Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
“Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly kidnapped my client. He was ambushed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed by six men in military uniforms and Joaquin,” Zambada’s lawyer said.
Perez said that Zambada’s “legs were tied, and a black bag was placed over his head.”
“He was then thrown into the back of a pickup truck and taken to a landing strip. There, he was forced onto a plane, his legs tied to the seat by Joaquín, and brought to the U.S. against his will,” the lawyer said.
“The only people on the plane were the pilot, Joaquín and my client,” Perez added.
Citing an unnamed former member of Zambada’s security team who is currently incarcerated, journalists Juan Alberto Cedillo and Ioan Grillo reported Monday that gunmen for Guzmán López “ambushed” Zambada and “overpowered” four of his bodyguards after the Sinaloa Cartel leader was lured to a supposed meeting in Culiacán.
“The gunmen bound El Mayo and took him about 35 km in a car to the ranch of Lazareto. Here El Mayo was forced onto a plane and flown north,” the two journalists said on Grillo’s Substack site CrashOut Media.
“… As with any cartel source, we are taking the account with caution. But the description of the capture sounds more realistic than a version that U.S. federal agents, also anonymously, had told reporters on Thursday,” Cedillo and Grillo wrote. The agents had claimed that Zambada was tricked into boarding the plane, believing he was going to inspect a clandestine airfield in Mexico.
“It seems highly unlikely that Mayo would need to inspect such a site and would do it without his own security,” the journalists wrote, adding that the testimony of the imprisoned ex-security operative “fits in with” Perez’s allegation.
“Journalists have alternatively speculated that Mayo made a deal and handed himself into U.S. authorities. … In the smoke and mirrors of the Mexican cartel war, we have to be open to all possibilities. But the evidence now points more strongly to a kidnapping,” Cedillo and Grillo wrote.
The ‘El Mayo was deceived’ narrative
Citing two current and two former U.S. officials “familiar with the situation,” Reuters reported that Guzmán López “duped” Zambada into getting on to the plane.
“Guzman Lopez had convinced Zambada to board the plane by telling him that they were flying to see real estate in northern Mexico,” the news agency said.
Again citing its sources, Reuters said that “Zambada’s arrest followed lengthy surrender talks between U.S. authorities and El Chapo’s son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez.”
Citing U.S. and Mexican officials, The Wall Street Journal reported that Guzmán López “tricked” Zambada into flying to the United States.
“Zambada thought he was going to inspect clandestine airfields in Mexico, but
was instead flown to El Paso, Texas,” WSJ said, citing an unnamed Homeland Security Investigations official.
The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying that Guzmán López “betrayed” Zambada.
“El Chapo’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, tricked Mr. Zambada García into boarding the plane, the U.S. officials said, telling him they were going to look at real estate in northern Mexico. The older man had no idea that he was actually en route to Texas, where he would be delivered into the hands of American agents who had long been on his tail,” the Times reported.
Guzmán López and his brothers lead the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, which has clashed with a faction led by Zambada.
The surrender scenario
As journalists Cedillo and Grillo noted, there has also been reporting that Zambada — who is reportedly ill — may have reached an agreement with U.S. authorities and decided to hand himself in.
Luis Chaparro, a journalist with extensive experience reporting on Mexican cartels, said that El Mayo reached a deal with U.S. authorities and consequently surrendered.
“Before one DEA and one FBI agent opened the stairwell of the plane, El Mayo had one last request: he didn’t want to go looking weak,” Chaparro wrote on his Substack site Saga.
“He asked everyone there not to say he turned himself in, but rather that he was either captured, kidnapped or tricked. The agents agreed and helped him and Joaquín down,” wrote Chaparro, who said his reporting was based on information provided by U.S. sources including government officials.
United States tells Mexico it didn’t organize the flight to the US
Last Friday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for transparency from the U.S. government, saying that it “has to provide a complete report” on the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López.
Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez said Monday that the Mexican government asked the U.S. Department of Justice to provide an official report on “conduct in Mexican territory as well as [the] flight plan and the circumstances” surrounding the events of last Thursday.
She told López Obrador’s morning press conference that the U.S. government responded to the request on Saturday via its embassy in Mexico City.
Rodríguez said that the U.S. government report had various points. Elaborating on those points, she said that the U.S. government told Mexico that:
- It was informed on several occasions that Joaquín Guzmán López was considering handing himself in to U.S. authorities, but no deal had been reached.
- It was informed last Thursday morning that Guzmán López was considering taking a flight to the U.S. later the same day to hand himself in.
- It was informed last Thursday afternoon that Guzmán López was flying to the United States to surrender.
- It was informed while the plane was in the air that Zambada might also be on the flight, but “had no independent confirmation” that was the case.
- No U.S. government agency “planned” the flight.
- It arrested two passengers when they disembarked the plane.
Rodríguez said that the U.S. notified the Mexican government of the arrests after confirming that the two passengers were Zambada and Guzmán López.
“Personnel from the United States Embassy in Mexico City immediately communicated with authorities of the government of Mexico and sent photos of the suspects to the members of the Security Cabinet,” she said.
Citing a U.S. official, Reuters reported that “the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the two agencies who carried out the operation, scrambled agents from their local El Paso offices and barely reached the airport by the time the private plane was landing.”
Rodríguez said that the Federal Attorney General’s Office is conducting its own investigation into the events that preceded the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López in the United States.
The security minister said she wasn’t aware why Guzmán López decided to hand himself in.
His father, found guilty on drug trafficking charges in 2019, and his brother Ovidio, extradited to the United States last September, are both in prison in the U.S.
The Milenio newspaper, which said it spoke with U.S. security sources, reported that the extradition of Ovidio to the United States led to Guzmán López to negotiate a surrender deal with the FBI.
Milenio said that the U.S. also offered agreements to two other sons of El Chapo, Iván and Jesús, but Joaquín was the only one who showed interest.
Citing its U.S. sources, the newspaper said that Joaquín Guzmán López became an FBI source.
“The delivery of Ismael Zambada García as a bargaining chip [to obtain] penitentiary benefits wasn’t on the table until the final moments prior to the surrender of Joaquín,” Milenio said.
AMLO refuses to rule out possibility that the US facilitated the arrests from Mexico
Asked whether U.S. agencies worked in Mexico on the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López, López Obrador responded:
“I can’t rule that out. We have to wait, we have to wait and see what they tell us. … And [official] information is the best thing so as not to fall into conjecture and speculation.”
López Obrador said he was confident that the U.S. government would provide “all the information” it has to Mexico.
He reiterated that possible U.S. involvement in the arrests from Mexico could not be ruled out, but stressed that “there is no proof” of that.
“What we can say is that the government of Mexico didn’t participate,” López Obrador said.
He referred to Perez’s claim that his client was kidnapped by Guzmán López, saying that clarification is required about the supposed military uniforms worn by the men who allegedly “ambushed” Zambada.
“A military uniform from Mexico, from the United States?” asked López Obrador, who said it was “confirmed” that Mexican security forces were not in any way involved in the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López.
The president also said “that there is nothing that indicates that there could be [cartel] confrontations” related to the arrests of the two men.
Security experts have warned that violence between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel could increase as a result of the events last Thursday.
In recent days, the federal government has deployed 400 additional troops to Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa and a stronghold and operational base of the Sinaloa Cartel.
With reports from The Los Angeles Times, El Universal, Reforma, El Financiero, AP, Milenio and Reuters
