Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada says he was taken against his will to US amid conflicting accounts of arrest last month.
The co-founder of the Sinaloa drug cartel says he was kidnapped in Mexico and delivered into United States custody against his will, in the latest chapter of a dramatic case that has sparked global attention.
“I was ambushed,” Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada said in a statement released through his lawyer on Saturday that he said aimed to clear up the rumours and misinformation surrounding his capture last month.
US authorities have said that Zambada was detained on July 25 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of another co-founder of the cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
They were arrested after landing in El Paso, Texas, on a private plane.
On Friday, Zambada’s lawyer said Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms “forcibly kidnapped” his client near the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan and flew him to the US against his will.
But the Guzman family lawyer has denied that a kidnapping took place, instead calling it a voluntary surrender after extended negotiations.
In his statement on Saturday, Zambada said he felt it was important that the truth come out about his arrest, citing what he said were “false stories” about his “abduction”.
He explained that Guzman Lopez had invited him to a meeting at a ranch just outside of Culiacan on July 25. There, he described how he greeted several people before spotting 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 “without hesitation”.
“I was led into another room which was dark. As soon as I set foot inside of that room, I was ambushed,” Zambada continued.
He said a group of men then assaulted him, knocked him to the ground and placed a dark-coloured hood over his head.
“They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the bed of a pick-up truck.”
Zambada said he suffered “significant injuries” to his back, knee and wrists during the incident and was later driven to a nearby landing strip and “forced onto a private plane”.
On the plane, he said Guzman Lopez removed his hood and “bound” him with zip ties to the seat. “No one else was aboard the plane except Joaquin, the pilot, and myself.”
Zambada said they then flew directly to El Paso, where US federal agents took him into custody on the tarmac.
Zambada’s account of what happened comes a day after the US ambassador to Mexico acknowledged that the cartel leader was brought to the country against his will.
“This was an operation between cartels, where one turned the other one in,” Ken Salazar said on Friday, adding that no American resources were involved in El Mayo being brought to the US.
The American embassy also said no flight plan had been shared with US authorities and the pilot was neither a US citizen and nor had he been hired 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 while in a wheelchair. He pleaded not guilty to charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder.
Guzman Lopez, El Chapo’s son, also pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in a US court in late July.
Amid fears of spiralling violence following the arrests, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other.
More than 450,000 people have been murdered in drug-related violence across Mexico since the government of then-President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug gangs in 2006.