Alonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares
The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, July 30, 2024, p. 7
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not rule out that US agencies may have operated in Mexico as part of the plot that led to the capture of drug traffickers Ismael The May Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez. I cannot rule that out, we have to wait to be informed about how this situation was. The best thing is information, so that we do not fall into conjectures, into speculations.
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He considered the information sent to them by the United States to be insufficient, so if they do not have all the elements to know what happened, he could seek out his counterpart, Joe Biden. He reaffirmed Mexico’s commitment to collaborate in the fight against drug trafficking because it is a tragedy. If they consider that this is the way to solve the problem, Even if we have a different idea, we help, we have been helping, as long as our sovereignty is respected.
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He confirmed that Mexico is absolutely certain that neither the Army, the Navy nor the National Guard participated in the operation, even though there is information that people in military uniforms were involved. We need to know everything, because they say that a son of Joaquín Guzmán was the one who arrested him, that’s what Zambada’s lawyers say. We want to know, to see if it was him, and with whom. Because they also say that he was in a military uniform. A military uniform from Mexico, from the United States? Where was it? Where?
asked.
–Would they be in Mexico investigating the possible kidnapping of Zambada?
–The prosecution is doing it, because they are asking for all the information, what happened, everything, everything, we have to know what happened. In other words, there are versions. One is that given by the United States government that they had information that Guzmán Loera’s son wanted to negotiate with them, to turn himself in, that they had been doing it for some time.
López Obrador mentioned that until now the US government has not provided the videos of the moment of the capture at the Santa Teresa airport in New Mexico (very close to El Paso).
When asked directly, he downplayed the fact that the capture of these two important drug traffickers had a direct relationship with the US electoral process. He emphasized that in the report sent to them, the United States recognized that there was a precedent that Guzmán López had the intention of reaching an agreement with the justice system of that country for at least three years, but, he pointed out, there is no mention of Zambada also having that intention.
–Is this report sufficient?
–No, there is still a lot missing. For example, we need to know where they came from. Because they originally sent the flight plan from Hermosillo for a small plane to New Mexico from the National Institute of Migration of Mexico, which is not from the United States, but then it is mentioned that they did not leave from there, and there is no reliable information.
The situation is the same with regard to the pilot of the aircraft that transported them, because there is no clear information about the flight on which they arrived, nor about the pilot, since the only information that has been sent to them is that he did not belong to any US agency.
López Obrador insisted on his view that a fundamental solution to the problem of drug trafficking must be sought, otherwise leaders of organized crime gangs may be arrested but new ones will emerge.
He stressed that Mexico has maintained the levels of cooperation in combating drug trafficking We just need it to be done by our decision, and not like before, when the United States agencies were the ones in charge in Mexico in this matter. We cooperate because it is a humanitarian issue.
In addition to good relations, it is a humanitarian issue because they have this serious problem of consumption of very deadly drugs, such as fentanyl.
