Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took pride in the guilty plea of Sinaloa Cartel founder Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, who pleaded guilty this Monday before the United States courts. “When we started, they told us we were chasing shadows,” she recalled.
They said “they were impossible to reach,” the president recalled, for whom this guilty plea “marks the collapse of the empire,” but also the importance of the United States and Mexico working together.
However, she has again questioned the manner in which “El Mayo” was handed over to US authorities, thus deepening the theory, championed by the Sinaloa Cartel boss himself, that he was deceived by the family of his former associate, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is imprisoned in a Colorado prison.
“Everything needs to be analyzed. How did he end up in the United States?” Sheinbaum asked, also highlighting how Washington has placed Genaro García Luna, Felipe Calderón’s former Secretary of Security, on the same level as “El Mayo” and “El Chapo,” also imprisoned in a US prison.
“It caught my attention that the director of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) puts García Luna on the same level… he puts two well-known drug lords and the man who was Calderón’s Secretary of Security on the same level,” she emphasized.
This Monday, “El Mayo” pleaded guilty to two of the 17 charges in a New York court to avoid going to trial. His sentencing, expected in 2026, marks a milestone in the fight against the Sinaloa Cartel, which has seen the fall of its top bosses in recent years, including “El Chapo” Guzmán.
“El Mayo” pleaded guilty to two cocaine trafficking offenses that carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, without the possibility of appeal, as well as fines and seizure of millions of dollars in assets.
Zambada was captured on July 25, 2024, after landing at an airport near El Paso, Texas, although he has always claimed to have been “kidnapped” by the organization’s other founding faction, the Guzmán López family.
Along with him, El Chapo’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, was arrested. He is accused of having deceived him into selling him out to U.S. authorities after attending a meeting outside Culiacán to settle differences with local politicians, only to be attacked and taken to a plane to be handed over.
