Mexico City, Mexico — Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office on Sunday announced it had launched a treason investigation related to the recent arrest by United States authorities of Mexican drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman López, leaders of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel.
Zambada, a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel along with Guzman López’s father, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was arrested in El Paso, Texas on July 25 after he was allegedly lured onto an airplane under false pretences by Guzman López. El Chapo is currently serving a life sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking and other charges.
Information surrounding the drug lord’s arrest had been opaque from the start. But a letter from Zambada, released by his lawyer on July 10 said that he’d been tricked into getting on the plane under the belief that he would be meeting with a number of local Mexican politicians, including Sinaloa’s Governor, Rubén Rocha Moya, a member of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s ruling MORENA party.
While El Mayo sits in a Texas jail — awaiting transfer to New York where he faces drug trafficking, money laundering, conspiracy, murder and other charges — back in Mexico, the Attorney General has launched an investigation into anyone who may have been involved in Zambada’s alleged abduction and transfer to the U.S.
According to the Associated Press, the investigation stems from an obscure penal code which dates back to 1985, and was put in place following the extraordinary rendition of a doctor in Mexico who was involved in the torture of murdered DEA agent Kiki Camarena.
The news agency reported that the code states that treason is committed “by those who illegally abduct a person in Mexico in order to hand them over to authorities of another country.”
El Mayo’s alleged abduction and the use of Mexican airspace to deliver him to U.S. authorities was reportedly a trigger for the Attorney General’s investigation, which is looking into possible crimes including “illegal flight, illicit use of airports, immigration and customs violations, kidnapping, treason, and any other crimes that may apply.”
The Attorney General ‘s Office has not announced any new investigations into El Mayo or the younger Guzman relating to their criminal career.
Governor Rocha Moya has denied the Zambada’’s allegations of a planned meeting, and claimed he was not in Sinaloa on the day of Zambada’s arrest. “They lied to him, and if he believed them, he fell into the trap,” he said.
President López Obrador backed Rocha Moya and assured that Zambada’s comments could come from groups seeking to harm his government.
“Because they are upset, they don’t like the transformation, neither do the conservatives, nor some who are used to feeling that they are the owners of the world,” said López Obrador.
