August 10, 2024, 9:09 PM
August 10, 2024, 9:09 PM
Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was kidnapped and forced into the United States by the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán while he was attending a meeting with the governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, the drug lord said in a statement on Saturday.
“I was kidnapped and brought to the United States by force and against my will,” said Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, in his first statement since he was arrested on July 25 in the United States.
He arrived in El Paso, Texas, accompanied by the son of his fellow cartel member, Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the so-called “Chapitos,” and the pilot on a private flight.
Zambada, 76, said that Joaquín Guzmán López, whom he has known “since childhood,” asked him to attend a meeting to “help resolve the differences between the political leaders” of his state.
The statement said that the dispute was “ongoing between Rubén Rocha Moya, governor of Sinaloa, and Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda, former federal deputy, mayor of Culiacán and rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS), over who should lead that institution.”
In addition to Cuén Ojeda and Rocha Moya, the meeting was also attended by Iván Guzmán Salazar, a drug trafficker.
“Nobody from organized crime has to invite me to a meeting (…) we have no complicity with anyone,” Rocha Moya responded to Zambada on Saturday in a speech at a public event.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, that he has “full confidence” in the governor. The elected president, Claudia Sheinbaum, also showed her support for Rocha Moya.
“We all lose from violence”
According to authorities, Cuén Ojeda was killed on same July 25, during an attempted robbery of his truck, but Zambada claims that “they killed him at the same time and in the same place” where they “kidnapped” him.
The boss also claims that the fate of two security members who entered the meeting place with him is unknown: “José Rosario Heras López, commander of the Judicial Police of the State of Sinaloa, and Rodolfo Chaidez, a long-time member of my security team,” he added.
Fearing a retaliation, Zambada called on the people of Sinaloa to “be moderate and maintain peace” in their state. “Nothing is resolved with violence. We have already been down that road and we all lose,” he said.
She also calls on the governments of Mexico and the United States to provide “transparency” and “the truth” about her kidnapping and “about the deaths of Héctor Cuén, Rosario Heras, Rodolfo Chaidez and any other person who lost their life that day,” she says.
“AND“ambush”
In his statement, the boss describes how he arrived at the meeting place in Huertos del Pedregal, on the outskirts of Culiacán, a little before 11 a.m. There was “a large number of armed men in green military uniforms who I assumed were gunmen for Joaquín Guzmán and his brothers.”
Joaquín Guzmán López “gestured him to follow him,” says the Sinaloa cartel boss who evaded arrest for nearly five decades.
“Being confident in the nature of the meeting and the people involved, I followed him without hesitation.” But he was taken to a room that was “dark,” where he was “ambushed,” he says.
“A group of men assaulted me, threw me to the ground and placed a dark-coloured hood over my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me, and then forced me into the back of a pickup truck,” he said. He was then taken to a landing strip and forced onto a private plane, where he was “tied to the seat with zip ties.”
About three hours later, “El Mayo,” Guzmán López, and the pilot landed in El Paso, Texas, where U.S. federal agents detained them.
“The idea that I turned myself in or cooperated voluntarily is completely and unequivocally false,” he said.
López Obrador had earlier reacted to Zambada’s statement about the alleged meeting between the drug lord and Rocha Moya.
“We have to wait for the governor to give his version and for us to have all the elements,” said the leftist leader.
According to court documents, Zambada, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder brought against him by the U.S. court, will sit in the dock in the same New York court that tried and sentenced “El Chapo” to life in prison.
Joaquín Guzmán López, who also pleaded not guilty, will be tried in Chicago.
