Mexican president points public attraction to drug cartels to not battle after detention of drug lord

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president took the bizarre step Monday of issuing a public attraction to drug cartels to not battle one another following final week’s detention of top Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned at his day by day press briefing that he trusted that drug traffickers knew they’d solely endure in the event that they stepped up the interior wars that already plague the Sinaloa cartel.

“Those that are engaged in these unlawful actions know they resolve nothing with confrontations,” López Obrador mentioned, including “they’d exit and danger the lives of different human beings, and why make households endure?”

“I belief that there will likely be no confrontations,” he mentioned, regardless of the very fact the military introduced over the weekend that it had despatched an extra 200 elite troopers from a paratrooper unit to the state of Sinaloa simply in case.

There have been no instant reviews of elevated violence over the weekend. However the Sinaloa cartel has been riven for years by combating between followers of Zambada, and rivals who observe the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, the daddy of Guzmán López. There are different sons nonetheless at giant.

Each Zambada and Guzmán’s son performed main roles within the Sinaloa cartel, and each had been detained Thursday after they arrived in Texas aboard a personal airplane. López Obrador has a document of publicly interesting to drug gangs for peace, typically even praising them.

In 2021, López Obrador praised the largely peaceable voting in elections that 12 months and despatched a message of recognition to the drug cartels that gasoline a lot of the nation’s violence.

“Individuals who belong to organized crime behaved very effectively, generally, there have been few acts of violence by these teams,” the president mentioned on the time. “I believe the white-collar criminals acted worse.”

The detention of Zambada and Guzmán López has proved a serious embarrassment for the president, Mexican officers had been pressured to confess they knew nothing concerning the operation till it was throughout.

Zambada had eluded authorities for many years and had by no means set foot in jail till a aircraft carrying him and Guzmán López landed at an airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, close to El Paso, Texas, on Thursday. Each males, who face numerous U.S. drug costs, were arrested and remain jailed.

Zambada’s lawyer pushed again Sunday in opposition to claims that his consumer was tricked into flying into the nation, saying he was “forcibly kidnapped” by Guzmán López. If that had been true, it may stoke accusations of betrayal, and extra combating, between the factions.

López Obrador mentioned there have been indications that U.S. authorities had been negotiating with Guzmán López to show himself for a while, presumably for months or years earlier than the drug lord apparently determined to take action.

However the Mexican president mentioned nothing was recognized about how Zambada ended up on the flight, and that Mexican prosecutors had been investigating to see if he was kidnapped.

Frank Perez, Zambada’s lawyer, mentioned his consumer didn’t find yourself on the New Mexico airport of his personal free will.

“My consumer neither surrendered nor negotiated any phrases with the U.S. authorities,” Perez mentioned in a press release. “Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly kidnapped my consumer. He was ambushed, thrown to the bottom, and handcuffed by six males in navy uniforms and Joaquin. His legs had been tied, and a black bag was positioned over his head.” Perez went on to say that Zambada, 76, was thrown behind a pickup truck, pressured onto a aircraft and tied to the seat by Guzmán López.

Often called an astute operator expert at corrupting officers, Zambada has a fame for with the ability to negotiate with everybody, together with rivals. He’s charged in a number of U.S. cases, together with in New York and California.

Prosecutors introduced a brand new indictment in opposition to him in New York in February, describing him because the “principal chief of the legal enterprise accountable for importing monumental portions of narcotics into the US.”