The story of kidnapping, secret offers and betrayal that noticed two of Mexico’s most wished drug lords taken into U.S. custody final month has taken one other twist.
Now, prime Mexican officers say investigators might have faked proof in a politician’s killing the identical day that kingpins Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López had been detained. These federal officers are demanding solutions from prosecutors in Sinaloa state about why they allowed the slain politician’s physique to be cremated in addition to different oddities within the dealing with of the case.
And Mexico’s president is left scrambling to elucidate how an in depth political ally — Sinaloa Gov. Rubén Rocha Moya — obtained blended up within the escalating scandal.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador meets together with his safety cupboard on the Nationwide Palace in Mexico Metropolis on Aug. 2.
(Fernando Llano / Related Press)
Citing “contradictions … from the very begin,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador advised reporters Friday, “There are issues that don’t add up.”
Sinaloa’s chief prosecutor, Sara Bruna Quiñónez Estrada, resigned later that day beneath stress from Mexico’s legal professional common.
It was a written assertion final week from Zambada, now jailed in the US, that upped the stress on Mexican authorities to elucidate what occurred.
Zambada, 76, wrote that Guzmán López, his 38-year-old godson, had invited him to a July 25 assembly exterior Sinaloa’s capital, Culiacán, to assist settle a dispute between Rocha and one other Sinaloa politician, Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda — however that it turned out to be a ruse.
Joaquín Guzmán López, left, a son of the Sinaloa cartel chief generally known as “El Chapo,” and longtime cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in partially redacted photographs launched by the Mexican authorities following their arrests July 25 in El Paso.
(Authorities of Mexico)
Zambada mentioned he was ambushed by Guzmán López and his males, tied up, pushed away and unwillingly placed on the airplane to the US. Guzmán López, he mentioned, zip-tied him to a seat at some point of the flight to a small airport close to El Paso, the place each had been arrested upon touchdown.
Cuén, a former mayor of Culiacán and chief of his personal political get together, was shot lifeless in the course of the kidnapping, in line with Zambada.
In distinction, Sinaloa investigators concluded that Cuén was shot lifeless throughout a theft try at a fuel station — an account that Mexico’s legal professional common, Alejandro Gertz Manero, has known as into query.
Safety footage launched by state authorities exhibits Cuén’s truck pulling right into a fuel station on the evening of Zambada’s arrest. As an attendant begins to pump fuel, two males on a bike pull up alongside the passenger aspect and one briefly reaches inside after opening the door. The truck and the motorbike then pace off.
Amongst many inconsistencies the legal professional common has flagged, the Sinaloa prosecutors mentioned that Cuén’s physique had 4 gunshot wounds — whereas just one shot could be heard on surveillance footage from the fuel station, which was launched to the general public with no sound included. Three workers on the station mentioned they heard no photographs.
The federal authorities mentioned the Sinaloan investigators violated customary protocol for murder inquiries by permitting Cuén’s stays to be cremated and didn’t course of crime scene proof from the truck or fuel station.
The Mexico Metropolis officers famous blood within the mattress of the pickup truck that was left unexplained by the native investigators, together with an obvious blow to the top that Cuén had suffered regardless of no indication of a bodily wrestle within the safety footage.
For his half, Rocha has denied attending a gathering with the kingpins or Cuén and mentioned he knew nothing concerning the occasion.
The governor, a member of the president’s Morena get together, has additionally denied any connection to drug trafficking. He known as himself a sufferer of “stigma” as a result of he hails from Badiraguato — the birthplace of many outstanding cartel leaders, together with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, who co-founded the Sinaloa cartel with Zambada and is serving a life sentence in the US.
After El Chapo’s arrest, his sons, together with Guzmán López, shaped their very own cartel faction — Los Chapitos — and cracks started to type within the longstanding alliance with Zambada.
Federal officers in Mexico mentioned they had been blindsided when Zambada and Guzmán López had been taken into U.S. custody and have demanded that the Justice Division hand over particulars, together with the airplane’s historical past, its flight path and the id of the pilot.
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, arrives for a press convention in Mexico Metropolis on Friday.
(Alfredo Estrella / AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador in Mexico Metropolis, has mentioned that the plane was not a U.S. authorities airplane and that that no flight plan was submitted prematurely. The pilot was not a U.S. citizen and was not employed or contracted by the US, the ambassador advised reporters.
Federal prosecutors in El Paso moved final week to have Zambada transferred to Brooklyn, the place a superseding indictment filed in February accuses him of producing illicit fentanyl and trafficking it to the US.
If a choose approves the transfer, Zambada’s case would possible be heard earlier than the identical courtroom that dealt with the 2019 trial of his former associate, El Chapo.
The Brooklyn courtroom is acquainted territory for the Zambada household. El Mayo’s brother, Jesús “El Rey” Zambada, and eldest son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, each testified in opposition to El Chapo, together with a number of different former high-ranking cartel members who may additionally doubtlessly function witnesses for the prosecution if there’s a trial.
Mexican authorities have alleged that Guzmán López and his brother Ovidio, additionally in U.S. custody and dealing with federal fees, shaped “a pact” to ship Zambada in hopes of receiving leniency. The Justice Division has declined to touch upon their instances, and the brothers’ lawyer has repeatedly denied any cooperation agreements.
This picture from video, offered by the Mexican authorities, exhibits Ovidio Guzmán López being detained in Culiacán, Mexico, on Oct. 17, 2019.
(CEPROPIE by way of Related Press)
Zambada has pleaded not responsible to the fees in opposition to him in El Paso, together with drug trafficking and homicide whereas main a “persevering with legal enterprise.” That offense can carry the demise penalty, and prosecutors famous of their request to maneuver Zambada to Brooklyn that he may finally be returned to Texas to face fees there.
In the meantime, in Zambada’s stronghold of Culiacán, the Mexican army has deployed troopers to maintain the peace amid fears of violence or all-out conflict as varied factions of the Sinaloa cartel compete to fill an influence vacuum.
The native information web site Ríodoce reported that two cartel figures — generally known as “El Vampi,” or The Vampire, and “El Tocino,” The Bacon — had been shot lifeless final week inside a Jeep within the Sinaloa city of La Campana as they had been leaving a funeral.
El Vampi was a reputed ally of Zambada and his sons. {A photograph} that circulated on-line after his killing confirmed him someday previous to 2011 alongside Zambada Niebla and his half brother Ismael Zambada Imperial, who’re each in the US after being captured, being extradited and pleading responsible to federal fees.
One other individual within the photograph, Eliseo Imperial Castro, a high-ranking cartel member generally known as “Cheyo Antrax,” was gunned down in Culiacán in late Might.
On Saturday, information retailers in Sinaloa reported that Martín García Corrales — an accused fentanyl trafficker for whom U.S. authorities had supplied a $4-million reward — was one among three males discovered shot lifeless within the city of Elota, south of Culiacán. The U.S. State Division described García Corrales as an in depth affiliate of Zambada.
McDonnell and Linthicum reported from Mexico Metropolis, Hamilton from San Francisco. Particular correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
