Truth or lie? A letter from El Mayo fuels Mexico-US tensions over Sinaloa Cartel arrests
Controversy and conflicting narratives persist around the arrests of two top Sinaloa Cartel leaders in the United States, raising questions about what led to the detentions and how the historic leadership blow may impact one of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced an official investigation on August 11 into the circumstances that led to the July 25 arrest of Ismael Zambada García, alias “El Mayo,” and Joaquín Guzmán López in El Paso, Texas.
Zambada, a founding figure of the Sinaloa Cartel and former right-hand man to Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” became the most powerful, original leader when El Chapo was arrested for a third time and later extradited to the United States in 2017.
Guzmán López, meanwhile, is one of El Chapo’s sons and a joint leader of the Chapitos, the Sinaloa Cartel faction led by the sons which rose to prominence following El Chapo’s downfall. This particular faction has become notorious for pioneering the production and trafficking of fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid behind a meteoric rise in drug overdose deaths in the United States in recent years.
Internal conflicts over the Sinaloa Cartel’s criminal empire at times placed the two men on opposing sides. Yet they arrived in the United States together on a private plane, sparking speculation of criminal treachery. Early reporting suggested that Guzmán López tricked Zambada into coming to the United States.
Mexican authorities say they are looking into whether the flight that took the pair out of Mexico was legal, as well as possible violations of immigration and customs laws, and an alleged kidnapping.
Days before the Mexican Attorney General’s Office made their investigation public, Ken Salazar, the US Ambassador to Mexico, published an official declaration saying that US authorities had nothing to do with the capture of the men. According to Salazar, Guzmán López turned himself in “voluntarily,” and the evidence suggested that Zambada was taken against his will.
However, some of Salazar’s assertions seemed to contradict earlier statements made by US officials. The day following the capture, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the arrests were the “culmination of a joint Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) investigation” targeting the Sinaloa Cartel.
The US government has for decades had the Sinaloa Cartel in its crosshairs, and even more so in recent years due to what it says is the group’s leading role in fentanyl trafficking. In 2023, Joaquín’s brother, Ovidio, was extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges after an extraordinary operation to capture him left dozens dead and a community terrorized.
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Amid a dearth of official information about the high-profile arrests, the truth of how Zambada and Guzmán López were captured is still shrouded in mystery, and tensions are rising between the US and Mexican governments.
A letter released through the lawyer of Zambada strained relations even further. In the August 10 statement, Zambada claimed that Guzmán López tricked him into attending a meeting with two local politicians.
“As soon as I set foot inside of that room, I was ambushed. A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the bed of a pickup truck,” reads the letter, which was published in English, causing some analysts to question its veracity.
It is unclear if Zambada actually wrote the letter, and parts of the statement are contradicted by other evidence. For example, Zambada alleged that Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya was supposed to be at the meeting alongside Héctor Melesio Cuen Ojeda, a former mayor of Culiacán and rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa – UAS).
Moya has since denied any knowledge of the alleged meeting, saying he was in the United States visiting family. Official flight logs, published by Sinaloa-based outlet, Revista Espejo, appear to back up this claim.
Cuen, on the other hand, was killed the night of the meeting, but it is still unclear how or why. The Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office said Cuen was shot by two men as they attempted to steal his truck at a gas station. Zambada claimed that Cuen, whom he described as “a longtime friend,” was “killed at the same time, and in the same place, where I was kidnapped,” contradicting the state’s version of events.
However, state prosecutors released video footage of the apparent shooting at the gas station, which seems to diverge from the official version of a carjacking, as well as Zambada’s story. Doubts about the video remain as it is impossible to identify Cuen or the driver of the truck in the video footage, nor the number of shots fired, or where he was injured.
In a further twist in the tale, on August 15 Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office published a press release describing irregularities in the investigation of Cuen’s killing, including incorrect observations on the state of his body. It also mentions significant bruising to Cuen’s head as well as four gunshots to his legs, despite there only being one gunshot heard in the video footage released by the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office. Three gas station workers interviewed by police did not mention hearing any gunshots during the carjacking, said the press release.
While the motive for Zambada writing such a letter remains unclear, Steve Fraga, a former special agent with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the case agent in indictments against El Mayo and his son, Vicente Zambada, told InSight Crime that such accounts can be used to generate attention and sow doubt.
“It creates havoc within the US and Mexican governments, and the court systems,” he explained.
Indeed, Mexico’s frustration with the United States around the capture is growing.
In the days following, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador questioned the role of US authorities in the arrest and requested more information. He has since ridiculed the idea that Zambada’s capture would make a dent in the opioid crisis.
“It’s a sham,” he said, in reference to the capture of the drug lords during his August 12 morning meeting.
In the immediate aftermath, it’s business as usual, according to synthetic drug producers and traffickers in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Baja California, who spoke to InSight Crime on condition of anonymity.
“Everything continues as normal, nothing has changed,” said one.
Still, on the ground in Sinaloa, they said the atmosphere remains tense weeks after the arrests took place. There has been no outbreak of fighting between El Mayo’s group and the Chapitos so far (unlike when El Chapo was finally extradited to the US in 2017, after which his home state dissolved into infighting for months), but several sources working at different levels of the synthetic drug supply chain told InSight Crime that they are ready to take up arms if asked.
*InSight Crime investigators Victoria Dittmar and Mike LaSusa contributed reporting to this article.
*This article was updated August 16 to include the Mexico Attorney General’s press release.
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