Zambada was arrested on Thursday along with Joaquín Guzmán López (38 years old), one of the sons of the imprisoned Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after landing in a private plane at an airport in El Paso, Texas.
The aircraft left the city of Hermosillo bound for a neighbouring airport in El Paso with the pilot and another crew member. The circumstances under which the drug lords boarded the plane are unknown.
Mike Vigil, a veteran agent of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) assigned to Mexico at different times since the 1970s, believes that it is “very likely” that Zambada was handed over by El Chapo’s son, who would have led him to believe that they were going to check clandestine airstrips, as reported by US media citing official sources.
Mexican authorities were not informed, according to López Obrador, who asked the United States for a “full report” on the arrest so that there is “transparency.”
The president clarified that there was no “mistrust,” although cooperation had already weakened following the brief arrest in Los Angeles of former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos for alleged links to drug trafficking.
“Very damaged” relationships
Cienfuegos was released at the beginning of 2021 by an agreement between both governments, but after the incident, López Obrador promoted regulations that limited the work of foreign security agencies such as the DEA, which he accuses of having failed in its anti-drug strategy.
“Relations are already very damaged. I don’t think they can be damaged any further,” Vigil told AFP.
This situation entails a “high cost” for the United States, because “we are facing problems that can only be solved if both parties collaborate,” Falko Ernst, an analyst for Mexico at the International Crisis Group, told AFP.
López Obrador accuses the DEA of being behind “slanderous” publications, spread during the recent presidential campaign, which mentioned an alleged meeting between one of his collaborators and Zambada before assuming power in 2018.
For its part, the DEA maintains that “there is much more work to be done” in Mexico to confront the cartels responsible for the production of fentanyl, a powerful opioid that kills tens of thousands of people in the United States every year.
Vigil believes that Washington refrained from informing Mexico so as not to jeopardize the operation, which he believes was preceded by conflicts between Zambada and a faction of the Sinaloa cartel led by two other sons of El Chapo, Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán.
“If Mexico is informed, that information can be compromised in a minute,” he said.
