Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ claims he was ambushed and kidnapped before being taken to the United States

Mexican drug cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada said he was ambushed and kidnapped while thinking he was meeting with the governor of the northern state of Sinaloa and then taken against his will to the United States, according to a letter released Saturday by his lawyer.

In the two-page letter, Zambada said that fellow drug lord Joaquín Guzmán López had asked him to attend a July 25 meeting with local politicians, including Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya of the ruling Morena party.

But before any meeting, he was taken to a room where he was knocked down, a hood was placed over his head, he was handcuffed, then taken in a van to an airstrip where he was forced onto a private plane that eventually took him and Guzmán López, one of the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, to U.S. soil, according to the letter.

Zambada’s comments came a day after the U.S. ambassador to Mexico confirmed that the drug lord was brought to the United States against his will when he arrived in Texas in July on a plane with Guzmán López.

After Zambada’s comments, which raised questions about links between drug traffickers and some Sinaloa politicians, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked journalists to “wait until they have more information” and hear the governor’s version.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. When the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López were announced, Rocha told local media that he was in Los Angeles that day.

In early August, Zambada, 76, made his second appearance in a U.S. federal court in Texas after being taken into U.S. custody the previous week.

Guzmán López had apparently been in long-term negotiations with U.S. authorities over a possible surrender. Guzmán López, 38, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.

But U.S. authorities said they received virtually no warning when Guzmán López’s plane landed at an airport near El Paso. Both men were arrested and remain in jail. They face charges in the United States for various drug-related offenses.

Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said the plane took off from Sinaloa, the Pacific coast state where the cartel is headquartered, and that it had not filed a flight plan. He stressed that the pilot was not American, nor was the plane.

It appears that Guzmán López intended to surrender and brought Zambada with him to obtain more favorable treatment, but his motives remain unclear.

Zambada was considered more involved in the day-to-day operations of the cartel than his better-known and more visible boss, “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019.

Zambada is charged in multiple cases in the United States, including in New York and California. In February, prosecutors filed a new indictment against him in New York, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for the importation of massive quantities of narcotics into the United States.”