President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that she asked United States President Joe Biden to provide all U.S. government information about the arrest in the U.S. earlier this year of alleged Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
Sheinbaum made the request to Biden during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday.
“I raised this issue, which has been difficult in the [bilateral] relationship,” she told Mexican broadcaster N+ at the airport in Rio before she boarded a flight to São Paulo to connect to an Aeroméxico flight to Mexico City.
Sheinbaum said she asked Biden for “all possible information” about the arrest of Zambada at an airport near El Paso, Texas, in July, so that the Mexican government can also “evaluate” it.
“I just told him that it would be very important for Mexico to have all the information,” she said before agreeing with a reporter that the U.S. president was “receptive” to the request.
The Mexican government has claimed that the United States government hasn’t been completely transparent about the arrest of Zambada and the events leading up to it.
Zambada claims he was kidnapped in Culiacán, Sinaloa, by Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, and forced onto a private plane that took him to the Doña Ana County International Jetport in New Mexico.
Guzmán López, an alleged leader of the “Los Chapitos” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, traveled to the United States on the same plane and was also arrested in New Mexico.
Former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed in September that United States authorities negotiated with Guzmán López to arrange the delivery of Zambada to U.S. law enforcement.
He said it was “completely irregular” and “illegal” that a person was “kidnapped via an agreement and taken to the United States.”
López Obrador also said that the United States was partially responsible for Sinaloa Cartel infighting that erupted after the arrest of El Mayo.
The U.S. government has denied any involvement in the capture of Zambada, who pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges during a brief appearance in a New York City courthouse in September.
Guzmán López pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other U.S. charges in Chicago on July 30, five days after his arrest in New Mexico.
He, his brother Ovidio Guzmán López, and Zambada all remain in U.S. custody as they await future court appearances.
With reports from N+
