MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president took the unusual step on Monday of making a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other, following last week’s arrest of top Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily news conference that he was confident that drug traffickers knew they would only suffer if they escalated the internal wars already ravaging the Sinaloa cartel.
“Those who engage in these illegal activities know that they do not solve anything with confrontation,” López Obrador said, adding: “They would go out and risk the lives of other people, and why would they make families suffer?”
“I trust that there will be no confrontations,” he said, despite the army announcing over the weekend that it had sent another 200 elite soldiers from a paratrooper unit to the state of Sinaloa as a precaution.
There were no immediate reports of increased violence over the weekend. But the Sinaloa cartel has been torn for years by fighting between Zambada’s supporters and rivals who follow the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Guzmán López’s father. Other sons are still at large.
Both Zambada and Guzmán’s son played key roles in the Sinaloa cartel, and both were arrested Thursday as they arrived in Texas aboard a private plane. López Obrador has a history of publicly calling for peace with drug gangs, sometimes even praising them.
In 2021, López Obrador praised the largely peaceful mood of that year’s elections and signaled recognition to the drug cartels that fuel much of the country’s violence.
“People who are in organized crime were generally very well behaved, there was very little violent activity by those groups,” the president said at the time. “I think the white-collar criminals were worse behaved.”
The arrest of Zambada and Guzmán López was a major embarrassment for the president. Mexican officials were forced to admit that they knew nothing about the operation until it was over.
Zambada had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison until a plane carrying him and Guzmán López landed Thursday at an airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, Texas. Both men, who face multiple U.S. drug charges, were arrested and are still in prison.
Zambada’s lawyer on Sunday pushed back against claims that his client had been tricked into flying to the country, saying he had been “forcibly kidnapped” by Guzmán López. If true, it could fuel accusations of treason and additional fighting between the factions.
According to López Obrador, there were indications that US authorities had been negotiating with Guzmán López for some time to turn him in, possibly months or years, before the drug lord decided to do so.
However, the Mexican president said nothing was yet known about how Zambada got on the plane and that Mexican prosecutors were investigating to see if he had been kidnapped.
Frank Perez, Zambada’s attorney, said his client did not arrive at the New Mexico airport of his own free will.
“My client did not surrender, nor did he negotiate terms with the U.S. government,” Perez said in a statement. “Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly abducted my client. He was ambushed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed by six men in military uniforms and Joaquin. His legs were tied and a black bag was placed over his head.” Perez said Zambada, 76, was thrown into the bed of a pickup truck, forced onto a plane and strapped to a seat by Guzmán López.
Known as a shrewd operator adept at bribing officials, Zambada has a reputation for being able to negotiate with anyone, including rivals. He is accused in some American casesincluding New York and California.
In February, New York prosecutors filed a new indictment against him, describing him as the “principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing massive quantities of narcotics into the United States.”