The plot surrounding the arrest in Texas of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada and “chapito” Joaquín Guzmán López will undoubtedly lead to a new narco-television series. The epilogue will show the founder of the most important criminal mafia in the world surrendering to American justice accompanied by his godson, or being handed over in a betrayal. Whatever the case, what this episode will bring to Mexico will confirm that, sometimes, harsh reality surpasses fiction.
It is likely that the Sheinbaum government, which begins in just two months, will be caught in the middle of a brutal change in the relative tolerance shown by Washington towards drug trafficking mafias in Mexico, regardless of who wins the American election in November.
Perhaps fentanyl has been the breaking point. It is incongruous to expect that the Western powers are imposing, at a very high cost, a new economic order to block China – which has brought us nearshoring – and that nothing happens with the Mexican cartels that make, with Chinese precursors, the drugs that kill more than 100,000 people every year in cities north of our border.
It is possible that the United States has decided to promote a new framework for the flow of illegal drugs through Mexico – suppressing it would be an illusion, due to its enormous domestic demand -, dismantling in principle the Sinaloa cartel, with which the López Obrador administration maintained a dynamic of compromise (somehow it has to be called) in search, unofficially, of reducing criminal violence in the country – if we leave aside the allegations leaked by the DEA about contributions from the mafias to the electoral campaigns of the ruling party.
The crisis over the case of “El Mayo” and his nephew revealed a pattern of disdain and distrust on the part of Washington towards the López Obrador government and the latter’s astonishment in response. The Secretary of Citizen Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, reported, after 24 hours of the events, that she had received reports from the American ambassador Ken Salazar hours after the episode in Texas had concluded, and that the President was informed even later.
Rodríguez herself admitted that when she informed the Secretaries of Defense of the Navy, respectively Luis Cresencio Sandoval and Rafael Ojeda, both told her that they were already informed through their own channels. And she offered a report, of confusing origin, about a plane that had transported Zambada and Guzmán López, even slipping when giving names of alleged suspects, which at night was shown to be false.
That was a nightmare morning for the Mexican officials involved. But it may not be the last one if the American justice system decides to wait until the end of the current administration to start asking questions of some of its key officials, in light of the testimonies it has already collected from several protected witnesses.
It must be assumed that Ismael “Mayo” Zambada will follow the same path as his son, Vicente “Vicentillo” Zambada Niebla, who was arrested in March 2009 in an exclusive neighborhood south of Mexico City. Under pressure from the United States, he was extradited in 2010. In 2019 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but in 2021 he was released under the category of protected witness. It is known that he usually travels between the United States and European countries.
Joaquín Guzmán López was transferred on the same day of his arrest to Chicago, the city where his brother Ovidio, of the same surname, was held. He was arrested in Mexico in January 2023 and extradited just eight months later. He was transferred to another prison (coincidentally or by agreement?) just two days after the events.
It is possible that both will meet in Chicago, with good weather at this time of year. And that all those relatives will sleep satisfied that up to now what was agreed has been fulfilled. In contrast, it will be in Mexico where the insomnia begins.
Source: elsoldemexico
