Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada says he was taken against his will to the United States amid conflicting accounts of his arrest last month.
The co-founder of the Sinaloa drug cartel says he was kidnapped in Mexico and handed over to U.S. custody against his will, in the latest chapter of a dramatic case that has drawn global attention.
“I was ambushed,” Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada said in a statement released through his lawyer on Saturday that he said was aimed at clearing up rumors and misinformation surrounding his capture last month.
U.S. authorities have 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 plane.
On Friday, Zambada’s lawyer said Guzmán López and six men in military uniforms “forcibly kidnapped” his client near Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state, and flew him to the United States against his will.
But the Guzman family's lawyer has denied that a kidnapping took place, instead calling it a voluntary surrender after lengthy negotiations.
In his statement Saturday, Zambada said he felt it was important for the truth about his arrest to come to light, citing what he said were “false stories” about his “kidnapping.”
He said Guzmán López had invited him to a meeting at a ranch outside Culiacán on July 25. There, he described how he greeted several people before seeing Guzmán López, whom he said he has known “since he was a child.”
“He made a gesture for me to follow him,” Zambada said in his statement, adding that, “trusting” those involved, he followed him “without hesitation.”
“They took me to another room that was dark. As soon as I entered that room, they ambushed me,” Zambada continued.
He said a group of men attacked him, threw him to the ground and placed a dark-colored hood over his head.
“They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the back of a pickup truck.”
Zambada said he suffered “significant injuries” to his back, knee and wrists during the incident and was then taken to a nearby airstrip and “forced onto a private plane.”
On the plane, he said, Guzmán López removed his hood and “tied” him to the seat with zip ties. “There was no one else on board the plane except Joaquín, the pilot and me.”
Zambada said they then flew directly to El Paso, where U.S. federal agents stopped him on the runway.
Zambada's account of what happened comes a day after the U.S. ambassador to Mexico acknowledged that the cartel leader was brought to the country against his will.
“This was an operation between cartels, where one handed over the other,” Ken Salazar said Friday, adding that no U.S. resources were involved in transporting El Mayo to the United States.
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 had he been employed by the US government.
Zambada was thought to be more involved in the day-to-day operations 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 Texas court in a wheelchair. He pleaded not guilty to charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.
Guzmán López, El Chapo's son, also pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in a U.S. court in late July.
Amid fears of spiraling violence following the arrests, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took the unusual step of issuing a public call to drug cartels not to fight each other.
More than 450,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence across Mexico since the government of then-President Felipe Calderón launched a military crackdown on drug gangs in 2006.
