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Three weeks after his arrest, the ruling party is dealing with new charges of links to the Sinaloa drug cartel as the group’s co-founder, Zambada, said in a letter on Saturday that he would meet with the Sinaloa cartel governor, Rubén Rocha Moya, from the ruling National Renewal Movement (Morena), on the day of his arrest.
Signs of May
The boss also assured that he was accompanied to the meeting by José Rosario Heras, commander of the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office, which was actually a ruse by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s son, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán López, who put him on a plane to the United States, where the two were arrested near El Paso, Texas.
Clemente Romero Olmedo, a national security expert at Cronem Consultores, said Zambada, who has never been jailed in more than 40 years of drug trafficking, had a “serious impact” on the government.
“This seems to confirm the links between the local political class, at least in this state, and the criminal groups that dominate the region,” the expert told EFE.
The letter shows that the political, military and police elites “have long supported the Sinaloa drug cartel,” which is why “this is also a threat from ‘Mayo’ Zambada to other political actors with whom he has dealings,” added David Saucedo, a public security consultant.
“Take this message to other actors, other governors, cabinet members, bosses, top police chiefs who have surely also been or are part of the Sinaloa Cartel protection circle,” he warned.
New movement against the government
The opposition accuses López Obrador of colluding with the Sinaloa cartel because he ordered a halt to the arrest of another of El Chapo’s sons, Ovidio Guzman, in 2019 and shook hands with the mother of the Sinaloa cartel boss in 2020. He visited Badilaguato, the birthplace of the criminal organization, more than five times.
The president reiterated at the meeting that the Mayo scandal was an effort to reinvigorate the “narcotics president” movement that took off ahead of the June election after articles in The New York Times and ProPublica about the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation into his alleged links to the cartels.
“The Culiacán thing came, the thing about Mr. Zambada and ‘AMLO the drug lord president’ is back on the web, but with everything, it’s back. And the money, where did all that money go? It’s not just a problem with Mr. Zambada, there must be other things bothering them, reforms, our position on foreign policy,” he said.
Both he and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum supported Gov. Rocha Moya’s disclaimer.
Although this link has not been confirmed, consultant Romero Olmedo believes that “there are well-founded concerns that did not exist in previous administrations” because “the president has visited Badilaguato, the heart of the group, more than any other city, without the press and without the media.”
Analyst Saucedo noted that the first half of the López Obrador government showed “passivity, laziness and conniving attitudes,” focusing on combating the rival Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
New tensions with the United States
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar confirmed on Friday that no American agents had intervened on Mexican soil, but López Obrador cast doubt on those statements this week, insisting Washington had not yet provided all the information about the arrests.
“We are in a game of shadows, we don’t know where we stand, what the links are, what the level of trust is between the Biden administration and President (López) Obrador,” Romero Olmedo commented.
Saucedo noted that pressure from the United States is growing, with presidential elections coming up this year and fentanyl trafficking a key issue, so “unilateral actions by the Americans send a message to the López Obrador government.”
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