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Mexican drug lord Ismael Zambada, known as “El Mayo”, has claimed that he was forced to board a plane to the US after being tricked by the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman last month.
Zambada made the revelation in a statement shared by his attorney on Saturday. American authorities captured the Sinaloa Cartel co-founder and Joaquin Guzman Lopez outside of El Paso, Texas. Guzman Lopez is believed to have been in charge of another part of the cartel, Reuters reported.
The detained drug lord claimed to have been “ambushed” during what was supposed to be a meeting with Sinaloa state officials and Guzman Lopez. The state officials included Governor Ruben Rocha and Hector Cuen who recently won federal elections.
Zambada said he initially saw Cuen at a ranch outside Culiacan, Sinaloa’s state capital, and that he then spotted Guzman Lopez, “whom I have known since he was a young boy, and he gestured for me to follow him.”
He followed Guzman Lopez because he was “trusting the nature of the meeting and the people involved,” and was led into a dark room.
According to authorities, the relationship between the different factions led by Zambada and the sons of El Chapo has at times been tense after El Chapo was captured in 2016.
Zambada claimed in his statement that after he went into the dark room, he was knocked to the ground by a number of men and tied up with a hood placed over his head. He was then taken to a landing strip in the back of a pickup truck and tied to a seat in a plane by Guzman Lopez. The plane took off for the US with just Guzman Lopez, Zambada, and the pilot, according to the drug lord.
But an attorney for the Guzman family has said on several occasions that Zambada wasn’t taken by force, instead claiming that it was a voluntary surrender following lengthy negotiations between the drug lords and US authorities.
Via its Mexico embassy, the US said on Friday that Guzman Lopez had voluntarily surrendered to American authorities but it appeared as if Zambada had been taken by force.
Zambada said in his statement that Cuen was killed during the alleged ambush, adding that a state police officer and a bodyguard who had accompanied the drug lord had not been heard from since the meeting.
Authorities in Sinaloa said that Cuen was thought to have been killed during a carjacking at a gas station in Culiacan.
Guzman Lopez and Zambada have both pleaded not guilty in US court to charges of drug trafficking.
