Alleged Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was kidnapped by fellow cartel member Joaquín Guzmán López near Culiacán, the same place where former Culiacán mayor Héctor Cuén was killed. That’s the story according to Zambada himself . Now, it looks like the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) agrees.
The FGR released a statement on the Zambada-Guzmán López case on Wednesday, almost one month after the two men were arrested at an airport near El Paso, Texas , after flying into the United States on a private plane. It said that a request for an arrest warrant for Guzmán López on charges of abduction of a person in Mexico in order to hand him over to the authorities of another country has been prepared. The FGR previously said that such actions constitute treason .
Guzmán López is one of “Los Chapitos,” the sons of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The Attorney General’s Office said on Wednesday that it had established “with complete precision” the airfield where the plane used for the “alleged kidnapping” of Zambada took off. In a statement released by his lawyer, Zambada , asserted that he was “ambushed” at a ranch and event center just outside Culiacán after being lured by Guzmán López to a supposed meeting between Cuén and Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya.
“A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head,” the 76-year-old said, adding that he was tied up, handcuffed and forced into the bed of a pick-up truck before being driven to a nearby landing strip and “forced” onto a private plane. Zambada also said that Cuén — mayor of Culiacán between 2011 and 2012, founder of the regionally influential Sinaloa Party and an ex-rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) — was not shot at a gas station, as Sinaloa authorities initially said. Rather, he asserted that Cuén was killed on July 25 at the property outside Culiacán where he believed he was going to help settle a dispute between the former mayor and Rocha over who should head up the UAS.
The FGR said it had located the property where “the probable crimes” of kidnapping, homicide, assault and “acts linked to forced disappearance” took place. Those “probable crimes” are also “linked” to the aggression that caused the death of Cuén, it said. “The exterior part of said property is now protected by the FGR’s Criminal Investigation Agency,” the FGR said, adding that they have identified the vehicles used in the “possible kidnapping.
” The FGR also said that it had established, “with precision,” that the finding of the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office (FGE) that Cuén was killed at a gas station in Culiacán “is not acceptable, nor does it have reliable elements of proof that allow it to be taken into account.” The FGE released a video last week that purportedly shows a motorcycle rider shoot Cuén inside a white pick-up truck at a gas station in La Presita, on the outskirts of the city of Culiacán. However, as the FGR previously noted , the identity of the occupants of the pick-up truck is impossible to establish from the video.
Sara Bruna Quiñónez Estrada resigned as attorney general of Sinaloa last Friday after discrepancies between the state and federal findings came to light. Governor Rocha has highlighted that he traveled to Los Angeles on the day Zambada and Guzmán López arrived in the United States, and denied any knowledge of the supposed meeting with Cuén. The circumstances that resulted in the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López, the murder of Cuén and the disappearance of two of Zambada’s security personnel — one of whom is a Sinaloa police commander — are still not clear.
But the FGR’s statement is congruent with both Zambada’s statement and a declaration by United States Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar that evidence “indicates that El Mayo was taken [to the U.S.] against his will,” suggesting that a kidnapping is the most likely version of events.
The FGR is also trying to establish who flew the plane that transported Zambada and Guzmán López to the Doña Ana County International Jetport in New Mexico and into the hands of United States law enforcement authorities. It has requested a range of information about the flight and the aircraft from the United States government. Both Zambada and Guzmán have pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges they face in the U.
S.. The former is in custody in El Paso, but looks set to to be transferred to New York to face trial in the same Brooklyn courthouse where El Chapo was convicted.
Guzmán López is behind bars in Chicago . Mexico News Daily.
