Mexican drug lord ‘El Mayo’ says he was ambushed and kidnapped before being taken to US

Zambada’s comments were released a day after the US ambassador to Mexico confirmed that the drug lord was brought to the United States against his will when he arrived in Texas in July on a plane along with Guzmán López.

After Zambada’s comments, which raised question about links between drug traffickers and some politicians in Sinaloa, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked reporters “to wait to get more information” and to hear the governor’s version.

The governor’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Saturday. When the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López were announced, Rocha told local media that he was in Los Angeles that day.

In early August, Zambada, 76, made his second appearance in US federal court in Texas after being taken into US custody the week before.

Guzmán López apparently had been in negotiations with US authorities for a long time about possibly turning himself in. Guzmán López, 38, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.

But US officials said they had almost no warning when Guzmán López’s plane landed at an airport near El Paso. Both men were arrested and remain jailed. They are charged in the US with various drug crimes.

Ken Salazar, the US ambassador to Mexico, said that the plane had taken off from Sinaloa – the Pacific coast state where the cartel is headquartered – and had filed no flight plan. He stressed the pilot was not American, nor was the plane.

The implication is that Guzmán López intended to turn himself in, and brought Zambada with him to procure more favourable treatment, but his motives remain unclear.

Zambada was thought to be more involved in day-to-day operations of the cartel than his better-known and flashier boss, “El Chapo”, who was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2019.

Zambada is charged in a number of US cases, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing enormous quantities of narcotics into the United States”.