‘Who lied?’ about the United States’ role in the capture of cartel boss ‘El Mayo’ Zambada: Tuesday’s mañanera recapped

Sheinbaum’s mañanera in 60 seconds

The main focus of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Tuesday morning press conference was the 2024 arrest in the United States of Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, admitted in a U.S. court late last year that he orchestrated the July 2024 kidnapping of Zambada, who was forced onto a plane and flown to an airport in New Mexico, where he was arrested by U.S. authorities. Guzmán López flew to the United States on the same plane and was also taken into custody.

Mexican authorities have long suspected that the U.S. government collaborated with Guzmán López on the capture of Zambada, although the U.S. Embassy in Mexico has denied that was the case.

In late June, Sheinbaum noted that the previous Mexican government led by ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked U.S. authorities to explain how the arrest of Zambada came about, although it never received a clear response.

Today’s mañanera was significant as the federal government accused U.S. authorities of presenting “contradictory” versions of events about the circumstances of Zambada’s arrest. It was also important because the government revealed that Mexican authorities will seek information about the arrest directly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which was involved in the operation to capture Zambada, according to journalist Luis Chaparro and his media outlet/YouTube channel Pie de Nota.

The Sheinbaum administration has taken note of Chaparro’s reporting, which has given Mexican authorities additional impetus to determine exactly how Zambada came to be detained at a small New Mexico airport almost two years ago.

If it is confirmed that the FBI and/or other U.S. agencies were involved in an operation to capture Zambada, the Mexican government would consider that another violation of Mexican sovereignty by the United States.

Sheinbaum has already denounced U.S. interference in Mexico in light of the CIA’s alleged participation in a drug lab raid in Chihuahua in April and U.S. prosecutors’ request for the arrest of Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and various other current and former officials accused of drug trafficking in league with the Sinaloa Cartel.

Rodríguez accuses US of presenting ‘contradictory’ versions of events regarding the capture of Zambada 

At the start of Sheinbaum’s mañanera, Interior Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez presented a chronology of events related to the capture of Zambada in July 2024. Here is the information she presented.

1. Ovidio Guzmán, one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons and a leader of the “Chapitos” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested in Culiacán on Jan. 5, 2023. Ten soldiers were killed during the operation.
2. On Sept. 15, 2023, the government of Mexico extradited Ovidio Guzmán to the United States.
3. On July 25, 2024, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico announced a change in the “preventive measure” (i.e. custodial status) of Ovidio Guzmán “without consulting the government of Mexico, which violates the [bilateral] extradition treaty.” (Mexico’s Attorney General Office said in July 24 that Guzmán was released from high-security prison two day’s before Zambada’s arrest, but then U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar asserted at the time that Guzmán was still in U.S. custody.) Also on July 25, 2024, Joaquín Guzmán López, another leader of the “Chapitos,” and Zambada were detained by U.S. authorities after flying into the Doña Ana County International Jetport near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The plane’s transponder was only turned on “five minutes before landing.”
4. On July 31, 2024, the Mexican government requested information from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico “about the participation of U.S. agencies” in the arrest of Zambada.
5. On Aug. 9, 2024, then U.S. Ambassador Salazar “publicly reported that no U.S. agency participated in the operation.”
6. On May 9, 2025, 17 relatives of Ovidio Guzmán were “received by the U.S. government” at the Mexico-U.S. border.
7. On July 2, 2026, “a report in the media outlet Pie de Nota informs that the light aircraft that was used [to fly Zambada to the U.S.] is part of an exhibition of war planes in which the FBI presents it as part of an operation of that agency.”

“Why is it important? Why is this important?” Rodríguez said.

“The versions [of events] are contradictory,” she said, referring to Salazar’s remarks and the FBI’s apparent admission that it played a role in the operation to capture Zambada.

“Someone lied,” Rodríguez said.

If it is confirmed that the FBI was involved in the operation to capture Zambada “without informing the Mexican government,” there was a violation of the UN Charter, of the Charter of the Organization of American States, of the Mexican Constitution and of the National Security Law, she said.

Rodríguez subsequently suggested that the U.S. government had entered into “agreements with organized crime” — i.e., Joaquín Guzmán López — to facilitate the arrest of Zambada.

Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asserted that the United States carried out the “operation” that resulted in the arrest of Zambada in the United States. With his use of the word “operation,” he apparently meant a negotiation with Guzmán López that he believed resulted in the delivery of Zambada to U.S. law enforcement authorities at the Doña County airport on July 25, 2024.

Velasco: FGR to seek information from the FBI

Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Velasco told reporters that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked the Federal Attorney General’s Office to request “greater information” from the FBI “about this [alleged U.S.] involvement that was reported in the media.”

“We have also been in contact with the U.S. ambassador in Mexico about this issue,” Velasco said, adding that the U.S. Embassy has already provided some information about how the plane that flew Zambada to the U.S. was “loaned” to a museum in El Paso. The museum he was referring to is the War Eagles Museum, located at the Doña Ana County International Jetport, which is about 27 kilometers northwest of El Paso, Texas.

Sheinbaum: ‘Did Ambassador Ken Salazar lie?

Sheinbaum noted that Salazar, who was the U.S. ambassador in Mexico between late 2021 and early 2025, publicly said that no U.S. agency was involved in the operation to capture Zambada.

“However, in recent days we found out via a media report that the plane in which these two people, organized crime members, arrived [in the United States] is on display at a … [museum] where the FBI claims this operation,” she said.

“So, based on that, the question is, who’s lying? Who lied? Did Ambassador Ken Salazar lie?” Sheinbaum asked.

“Why is it important? Firstly, because he [allegedly] lied as ambassador, and secondly, if one of the U.S. agencies participated in this operation, it would have violated international treaties and the Constitution of the United Mexican States,” she said.

Sheinbaum also suggested that the United States had made a pact with “members of organized crime.”

‘El Mayo’ releases statement on his arrest: ‘I was kidnapped’

After noting that members of the extended family of Ovidio Guzmán (and El Chapo) were received by U.S. authorities at the border last year, she asked: “Who makes agreements with members of organized crime?”

Sheinbaum subsequently said that her government doesn’t make such agreements, adding to her insinuation that the U.S. government does.

“We’re never going to make agreements with any organized crime group,” she said.

Sheinbaum noted that the Foreign Affairs Ministry has asked the FGR to seek information directly from the FBI. She also said that the government is asking the FGR to report “today or tomorrow” on the investigations into Zambada’s arrest that it carried out while Alejandro Gertz Manero was attorney general. Gertz Manero resigned as attorney general late last year and is now Mexico’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Sheinbaum also said that her government has asked the FGR to report on what ongoing investigations it is carrying out related to the capture of Zambada.

“This is very important,” she said.

“And again [I ask] who lied, or who is lying? Did Ambassador Ken Salazar lie?” Sheinbaum added.

Later in the press conference, she said that all ambassadors have diplomatic immunity, which could protect Salazar from any legal consequences if he indeed made false remarks. However, Sheinbaum stressed that it is nevertheless “very significant” if a U.S. ambassador lies to the government of Mexico.

“If he lied, he’s not just lying to the government of Mexico, he’s also lying to who he is representing,” she said.

“… You can’t lie to the government of Mexico, just as we don’t lie to the U.S. government,” Sheinbaum said.

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