FILE PHOTO: This image provided by the US Department of State shows Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of an infamous Mexico cartel leader, who was arrested by US authorities in Texas. On Tuesday, July 30, 2024, López, pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in Chicago. (US Department of State via Associated Press)
MEXICO CITY — Prosecutors in Mexico suggested Thursday that US authorities made a deal with a Mexican drug lord who turned in himself and another capo, to get his brother transferred from a US prison.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office also accused US authorities of not responding to information requests on the case. The office also said that the small plane that flew them both to the United States in July had multiple registries and identification numbers, some of them false.
US officials have denied they were involved in the plot or the flight and said they got word of it only after the craft had taken off from northern Mexico.
It marked the latest chapter in the strange saga of two Mexican drug lords, one of whom allegedly kidnapped the other and flew him to an airport near El Paso, Texas.
The Mexican government has previously said it wants to bring treason charges against Joaquín Guzmán López, but not because he was a leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel founded by his father, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Instead, Mexican prosecutors are bringing charges against the younger Guzmán for apparently kidnapping Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada – an older drug boss from a rival faction of the cartel – forcing him onto the plane and flying him north.
The office said two of Zambada’s bodyguards – one of them a policeman – who went missing after the kidnapping had apparently been killed.
The younger Guzmán apparently intended to turn himself in to US authorities, but may have brought Zambada along as a prize to get his previously-arrested half brother, Ovidio Guzman, transferred out of a US prison.
READ: US arrests 2 leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel
Mexican prosecutors suggested this was true, saying “the link between the (custody) status of Ovidio ”G,” the participation of his brother Joaquin in the presumed kidnapping of Ismael (Zambada) … are the main areas of focus of the investigation.”
At the end of July, the US Bureau of Prisons listed Ovidio Guzman’s custody status as having changed, but didn’t specify what had happened. US and Mexican officials have since claimed Ovidio is still in custody, just not necessarily in the same place.
Earlier this month, US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said Ovidio Guzman – a high value detainee who purportedly led the Sinaloa cartel’s push into manufacturing and smuggling the synthetic opioid fentanyl – “isn’t out on the street.”
“He is in prison,” Salazar said, “and we are going to judge him in the way the Department of Justice does it.”
Mexican prosecutors also claimed the plane the two allegedly flew on had multiple registries, some falsified, and that the plane’s “approach and landing in that country (the US) was authorized by the appropriate agencies of the US government.”
Mexican prosecutors also claimed they had made a total of five requests to US authorities for information on the flight, and that “as of now, there has been no response.”
The federal prosecutors’ statement also said it would be interviewing prosecutors, police and forensic examiners from the northern state of Sinaloa – home to the cartel of the same name – about their inspections of the walled recreation compound where the abduction and killings occurred.
READ: US denies orchestrating drug cartel leader’s capture, Mexico says
Previously, federal prosecutors had accused their Sinaloa counterparts of providing information that has since proved to be false.
Zambada has said that Guzmán, who he trusted, had invited him to the meeting to help iron out the fierce political rivalry between two local politicians. Zambada was known for eluding capture for decades because of his incredibly tight, loyal, and sophisticated personal security apparatus.
The fact that he would knowingly leave that all behind to meet with the politicians means that Zambada viewed such a meeting as credible and feasible. The same goes for the idea that Zambada, as the leader of the oldest wing of the Sinaloa cartel, could act as an arbiter in the state’s political disputes.
The governor of Sinaloa state has denied he knew of or attended the meeting where Zambada was abducted.
The whole case has been an embarrassment for the Mexican government, which didn’t even know about the detentions of the two drug lords on US soil until after the fact.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has long viewed any US intervention as an affront, and has refused to confront Mexico’s drug cartels. He recently questioned the US policy of detaining drug cartel leaders, asking, “Why don’t they change that policy?”