Details of Sinaloa cartel leader ‘El Mayo’ captured – DNyuz

The co-founder of the Sinaloa drug cartel says he was kidnapped in Mexico and returned to the United States against his will, the latest chapter in a dramatic case that has captured worldwide attention.

“I was ambushed,” Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada said in a statement released Saturday through his lawyer, saying it was meant to clear up rumors and misinformation surrounding his arrest last month.

U.S. authorities said Zambada was arrested on July 25 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of another cartel co-founder, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

They were arrested after landing in El Paso, Texas, in a private jet.

On Friday, Zambada’s lawyer said Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms kidnapped his client “by force” near Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, and flew him to the U.S. against his will.

However, the Guzman family’s lawyer denies that there was a kidnapping, instead speaking of a voluntary surrender after lengthy negotiations.

In his statement on Saturday, Zambada said he felt it was important for the truth about his arrest to come out, citing what he called “false stories” about his “kidnapping.”

He explained that Guzman Lopez invited him to a meeting at a ranch just outside Culiacan on July 25. There, he described greeting several people before seeing Guzman Lopez, whom he said he has known “since he was a young boy.”

“He gestured for me to follow him,” Zambada said in his statement, adding that, “trusting” those involved, he followed him “without hesitation.”

“I was led into another room which was dark. As soon as I entered that room, I was attacked,” Zambada continued.

He stated that a group of men then attacked him, knocked him to the ground and pulled a dark hood over his head.

“They tied me up, handcuffed me and then forced me into the back of a pickup truck.”

Zambada said he suffered “serious injuries” to his back, knee and wrists during the incident and was later driven to a nearby airstrip and “forced into a private jet.”

On the plane, he said, Guzman Lopez removed his hood and tied him to the seat with zip ties. “There was no one else on the plane except Joaquin, the pilot, and me.”

Zambada said they then flew directly to El Paso, where U.S. federal agents arrested him on the tarmac.

Zambada’s account of what happened comes a day after the U.S. ambassador to Mexico acknowledged that the cartel leader had been brought into the country against his will.

“This was an operation between cartels, where one turned in the other,” Ken Salazar said Friday, adding that no U.S. assets were involved in the transfer of El Mayo to the U.S.

The US embassy also said that no flight plan had been shared with US authorities and that the pilot was not a US citizen nor was he hired by the US government.

Zambada was believed to be more involved in the day-to-day running of the Sinaloa drug cartel than El Chapo, who was sentenced to life in prison by a US court in 2019.

Last week, Zambada appeared in a wheelchair in a Texas courtroom, pleading not guilty to charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.

Guzman Lopez, El Chapo’s son, also pleaded not guilty in a US court in late July to drug trafficking and other charges.

Amid fears of increased violence following the arrests, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador made an unusual appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other.

Since the government of then-President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug gangs in 2006, more than 450,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico.

The post ‘I was ambushed’: Sinaloa cartel leader ‘El Mayo’ describes arrest appeared first on Al Jazeera.