El Chapo’s Son Abducted El Mayo and Flew Him to U.S., Officials Now Say
In the hours after the arrest of Ismael Zambada García, the last remaining godfather of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, U.S. officials gave their early understanding of the mystery at the center of it all: How did a fugitive who had evaded capture for decades end up being delivered straight into their hands?
Mr. Zambada García, the officials said, had been lured by a son of his former partner in crime, the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, onto a private plane that flew him without his permission over the border.
But after a fuller vetting of the account of El Chapo’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, with people who had knowledge of it, American officials have since come away with a different and more dramatic version of what took place in Mexico.
Mr. Zambada García, one of his country’s most wanted men, had come down from a hide-out in the mountains last week and was ambushed in the Mexican city of Culiacán at what he thought would be a friendly meeting with Mr. Guzmán López, according to three federal law enforcement officials who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive details of the case. Mr. Guzmán López then forcibly flew Mr. Zambada García in a Beechcraft King Air turboprop across the border, where he was apprehended by U.S. federal agents, the officials said.
That version of events echoed one that was recently offered by Mr. Zambada García’s lawyer, who told The New York Times and other news outlets that his client had not been tricked into boarding the plane, but in fact had been abducted. Mr. Guzmán López, the lawyer said, waylaid Mr. Zambada García with a group of henchmen who handcuffed him, stuck a bag over his head and muscled him into a car and then on to the plane, where he remained bound throughout the flight.
“My client neither surrendered nor negotiated any terms with the U.S. government,” the lawyer, Frank Perez, said in a statement released to reporters. “Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly kidnapped my client.”
Joaquín Guzmán López in a photo provided by the State Department.Credit…U.S. Department of State, via Shutterstock
It was the latest twist in a murky and evolving narrative, shaped by various parties with interests in its outcome — U.S. and Mexican officials, cartel sources and lawyers for the kingpins. As new versions of the capture continue to surface, the only thing that is clear is that no one has publicly told the whole story yet.
Even now, the precise events last Thursday that ended with both Mr. Zambada García and Mr. Guzmán López in U.S. custody at a regional airport near El Paso, Texas, still remain uncertain. More details about what happened that day could be revealed on Wednesday, when Mr. Zambada García heads to court in El Paso.
The three law enforcement officials told The Times that the American government had not been involved in, and had no real-time knowledge of, the specific methods used to get Mr. Zambada García to the United States. But the U.S. government got more clarity into what unfolded on the ground in Mexico last week, they said, after a fuller debriefing of sources with knowledge of what had transpired.
According to one of the officials, the ambush in Culiacán turned violent as bodyguards loyal to Mr. Guzmán López clashed with those loyal to Mr. Zambada García.
Legal experts say that even if Mr. Zambada García arrived in the United States under physical duress, it may have no effect on the criminal charges he is facing. There is longstanding legal precedent allowing prosecutors to pursue cases against defendants who were brought to the United States against their will, the experts said.
“U.S. law is quite clear that even kidnappings that violate extradition treaties don’t provide a basis for relief for the defendant,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Columbia Law School.
But Mr. Zambada García’s lawyer may eventually seek to make hay out of the kidnapping accusations, which could complicate efforts by U.S. law enforcement to prosecute him — if not as a matter of law, then perhaps as a matter of diplomacy.
Relations between U.S. law enforcement officers and Mexican officials have been strained since 2020, when American federal agents arrested Salvador Cienfuegos, the former Mexican defense minister, in Los Angeles — only to release him and drop the charges after Mexico’s government expressed outrage at having been kept in the dark about the move. The Mexican government has said it had no involvement in the arrests of the two top cartel bosses in El Paso and was informed of the detentions only after they had occurred.
“The issue is about more diplomatic niceties and public relations than whether a U.S. court can hear this prosecution,” Mr. Richman said.
Mexico’s security minister, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, said on Monday that the authorities had opened their own investigation into the events in Mexico and “the crimes that may have occurred.”
A person close to Mr. Guzmán López, along with two current and two former U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, say that no formal deal had been reached with him before his surrender.
But his role in the capture of Mr. Zambada García didn’t come out of nowhere — it was the culmination of a back channel that a small team of F.B.I. agents had maintained with him and some of his brothers for years, the current and former officials said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico confirmed the existence of that channel at his daily news conference on Monday, saying that U.S. officials had been quietly in touch with Mr. Guzmán López for some time. The Mexican security minister said U.S. officials had been informed on multiple occasions that Mr. Guzmán López was considering turning himself in to the American authorities.
The discussions with the sons, which took place directly and through intermediaries, began nearly five years ago, not long after El Chapo — whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera — was convicted on drug-conspiracy charges at a trial in Brooklyn and sentenced to life in prison, said three of the people familiar with the conversations.
The goal of the talks had always been to persuade Mr. Guzmán Loera’s sons, known collectively as the Chapitos, to spare themselves their father’s fate and surrender in the United States, where they are all facing federal charges. The talks became more intense and frequent, the people familiar with them said, after one son, Ovidio Guzmán López, was extradited from Mexico last fall to stand trial in Chicago.
That development spawned a conversation with U.S. officials about Joaquín turning himself in and bringing along Mr. Zambada García — either willingly or not, according to one of the current and one of the former officials.
Such a move would have two direct benefits for the Guzmán brothers: It would increase the possibility that Joaquín and Ovidio could get favorable terms in any future plea deals with U.S. prosecutors and it would assist the two brothers who remain in Mexico by removing one of their chief rivals in the Sinaloa cartel, Mr. Zambada García.
The conversations with Joaquín heated up this month, two of the people familiar with them said, as he began to tell his American interlocutors that he was close to persuading Mr. Zambada García to meet with him without his typical security detail in tow.
It is not unheard-of for U.S. law enforcement to maintain under-the-radar contacts with even the most violent Mexican traffickers.
Indeed, for several years, some of the same American officials who were talking with El Chapo’s sons were also in communication with Mr. Zambada García, seeking to negotiate his own potential surrender, according to one of the officials.
On Thursday morning, when the trip was apparently confirmed, Mr. Guzmán López’s interlocutors notified a small group of U.S. law enforcement officials who had a stake in prosecuting Mr. Zambada García, the official said.
American federal agents were then apprised, the official said, as the meeting took place and the plane took off, headed toward El Paso with Mr. Zambada García aboard. The aircraft was quietly waved into U.S. airspace with the assistance of Customs and Border Protection.
The agents were waiting for it at Dona Ana County International Jetport, a small airport outside El Paso.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.
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