Cartel leader kidnapped to US 'had meeting with politicians'
August 10, 2024


A statement by the recently kidnapped leader of the Sinaloa cartel Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García (76) to the United States once again shows a disturbing intertwining between the underworld and the upper world in Mexico. On the day of his kidnapping on July 25, “El Mayo” says he had an appointment with the governor of the state of Sinaloa and, among others, the former rector of the University of Sinaloa.

By @Wim van de Pol

The statement was provided to the Los Angeles Times by an attorney for Zambada .

Until now, it was known that El Mayo was involuntarily put on a plane after having an appointment with the son Joaquín of the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera. Together they then flew to Texas where they were arrested. It also leaked that this Joaquín Guzmán had had contacts with the FBI.

University management
El Mayo now describes his version of events in his statement.

He says Joaquín Guzmán López had asked him to come to a meeting in the Sinaloa capital, Culiacán. The two top criminals of the Sinaloa cartel were supposed to help mediate a dispute over who would lead the state’s university. The governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya (pictured right), and a former university rector, Héctor Melesio Cuén (pictured left), a renowned academic and politician from Sinaloa, from the regional party PAS, were supposed to be present.

El Mayo says that upon entering, he greeted Héctor Cuén and one of his assistants. That was the last time he saw him alive. Cuén was murdered later that night.

Dark room
El Mayo also writes that the ranch just outside the city where the meeting was to take place was teeming with men in green uniforms, who he said were security for Joaquín Guzmán.

El Mayo:

I saw Joaquin Guzmán López, whom I have known since he was a child. He gestured for me to follow him. I trusted that the meeting I had planned would really take place and I followed him without hesitation. They led me to a room where it was dark.

El Mayo says he was overpowered in that room, handcuffed and taken with Guzmán to a plane flying to a small airport in Texas in the United States.

It is believed that Guzmán surrendered voluntarily with the intention of making a deal with US law enforcement after several years of contact with the FBI.

Gasoline pump
El Mayo Zambada says he arrived at the ranch with four of his bodyguards. It has since become clear that two of them have disappeared without a trace. He says that Héctor Cuén must also have been murdered there that night.

The official story is that Cuén was shot dead the following night by unknown persons on a motorcycle at a gas station.

"That's not what happened," said El Mayo, who called Cuén "a friend" in his statement. The local Public Prosecutor's Office investigation has not yet yielded any results.

"I think it's important that the truth comes out. This is what happened, not the false stories that are circulating," Zambada said.

https://www.crimesite.nl/naar-vs-ontvoerd-kartel-kopstuk-had-afspraak-met-politici/