President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed Thursday that the United States government was partly to blame for a wave of cartel violence that has claimed more than 40 lives in Sinaloa in the past two weeks.
When asked at a morning press conference whether the U.S. was in any way “co-responsible” for the violence stemming from the clashes between the “Los Mayos” and “Los Chapitos” factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, López Obrador gave a firm answer.
“Yes, of course, yes,” he said.
López Obrador asserted that the United States was partly responsible for the outbreak of violence in Culiacán and its environs because it carried out an “operation” that led to the arrest in the US of alleged Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García on July 25.
By “operation” he apparently meant a negotiation with another alleged Sinaloa Cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán López, which he believed led to Zambada’s surrender to U.S. law enforcement authorities at an airport near El Paso, Texas.
While Los Mayos and Los Chapitos have been at war with each other for years, the main cause of their current conflict is the alleged kidnapping of El Mayo.
The U.S. government has denied any involvement in Zambada’s capture, alleging he was kidnapped and forced onto a U.S.-bound plane by Guzmán López, one of Los Chapitos, the so-called sons of convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera.
However, López Obrador said the United States government needs to “realize” that it “cannot act like that, without taking the Mexican government into consideration.”
“In other words, there can be no cooperative relationship if unilateral actions are taken. That is unacceptable,” he said.
The president alleged that there was a deal between Guzmán López and U.S. authorities, and “as a result of that deal … the confrontation that is happening now is happening.”
He said Mexican authorities were still unaware of the details of the alleged deal, though they called for transparency from their U.S. counterparts.
Jeffrey Lichtman, Guzmán López’s attorney, said in late July that his client had not reached any agreement with U.S. authorities.
However, López Obrador said that “according to the Federal Attorney General’s Office [FGR]That [U.S.] The Justice Department had talks with one of the crime groups in Sinaloa and they reached an agreement.”
“They even released or gave different status to one of the prisoners in the United States at the same time that another person was arrested. [to the U.S.],” he said.
The statement apparently referred to reports that Ovidio Guzmán López, another Los Chapitos resident, had entered the United States Federal Witness Protection Program.
Publicly available records from the US Federal Bureau of Prisons show that Ovidio was released from prison on July 23 — two days before his brother and Zambada’s arrests — but US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar has said on several occasions that Ovidio remains in US custody.
On Thursday, López Obrador hinted that Ovidio — who was arrested in Culiacán in early 2023 and extradited to the United States a year ago — received preferential treatment from U.S. authorities because his brother facilitated Zambada’s arrest for them.
“That requires an explanation because we are now facing a situation of instability, confrontation in Sinaloa,” he said.
“That’s because they took that decision,” López Obrador said.
“We do not agree… because we have problems here. Of course we face them, we solve them, but in Sinaloa there was no violence like now,” he said.
“That’s not it either… [as bad as] they think, that [not] “Totally out of control, no,” López Obrador said.
“… But we have to take special measures and move members of the armed forces [to Sinaloa]. And we also lost soldiers who were killed because of this special and extraordinary situation.”
AMLO: US ‘operation’ to seize Zambada ‘totally illegal’
Later in his press conference, López Obrador was asked whether the United States “really” carried out an operation (or negotiations) to capture Zambada.
“That can’t be true because they killed people. It’s completely illegal,” he said, apparently referring to El Mayo’s claim that former Culiacán mayor Héctor Cuen was killed in the same place where he was kidnapped.
“And the agents of [U.S.] The Department of Justice is waiting Lord May,” Lopez Obrador said, seeking to provide further evidence of a previous deal with Joaquin Guzman Lopez.
He also said it was “completely unconscionable” for someone to be “kidnapped through a contract and brought to the United States.”
The FGR has indicated that it intends to file treason charges against Joaquín Guzmán López for allegedly kidnapping Zambada and handing him over to US authorities.
In his lengthy remarks on the case, López Obrador also questioned whether the United States “really” negotiated Zambada’s arrest because of its desire to stem drug trafficking, specifically the entry of the deadly synthetic opioid, fentanyl, into the United States.
“Let’s see if that is it or if it is a decision taken, as usual, to [just] show that they are paying attention to the issue of fentanyl use — just for propaganda,” he said.
Relations with US ‘must be good’
Despite his harsh words against the U.S. government over its alleged collaboration with Joaquín Guzmán López, and his decision to cut ties with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico after Ambassador Salazar criticized the Mexican government’s judicial reforms, López Obrador has insisted that he supports efforts to maintain good relations with Mexico’s northern neighbor.
“The relationship has to be good for geopolitical reasons, because of the border — it’s 3,180 kilometers long,” he said.
“Forty million Mexicans live and work with honor in the United States. … So, we must maintain a relationship of mutual respect and good neighborliness with the United States,” López Obrador said.
“The only thing they have to understand is that we are an independent country.”
With reports from EFE and Milenio
