Mexican Prosecutors’ Explosive Allegation of Cover-up of Suspected Murder Confirms Story of Cartel Leader Held in U.S.

Police, prosecutors and forensic doctors in the north Mexican state of Sinaloa all conspired to cover up the murder of an opponent of the state’s ruling party governor by using a bloodstained truck found at the crime scene, federal prosecutors said Sunday.

Explosive statement from federal prosecutors confirms jailed drug lord’s version Ishmaël “El Mayo” Zambada. Zambada claims he was forced onto a plane on July 25 by another drug capo who took them both to the United States and handed them over to American authorities.

Zambada said in a letter in August, Héctor Cuén, an opponent of ruling party governor Ruben Rocha, was assassinated on July 25 at the same time and on the same ranch where Zambada had been kidnapped. Federal prosecutors revealed Sunday that Cuén’s blood was indeed found at the ranch.

Gov. Rocha has not responded publicly to prosecutors’ Sunday statement, but he has said in the past that Cuén was killed by gunmen during a random botched robbery at a gas station miles from there later in the day, and Sinaloa state prosecutors showed security camera footage of the alleged attack.

But federal prosecutors quickly noticed something was wrong with this video: Post-mortem recordings showed that Cuén’s body had four gunshot wounds, while only one gunshot can be heard in the footage. security cameras, and gas station employees said they didn’t hear any.

Cuén’s bullet-riddled body could not help solve the riddle, because Sinaloa authorities violated all rules for investigating murders by allowing the body to be cremated almost immediately.

The gas station footage was later revealed to be a fake, but something about the white van seen in the footage was real: It contained the blood of one of Zambada’s trusted bodyguards in the cargo bed.

This implied that Sinaloa state police, crime scene investigators and prosecutors had either found the bodyguard’s corpse in the truck and disposed of it, or at least removed the dirt-stained vehicle. blood from a crime scene to simulate a gunpoint robbery at the gas station. .

“All of the above confirms the investigation by the police and the prosecutor’s office which confirmed the alleged administrative and criminal responsibilities of the Sinaloa police, detectives, forensic pathologists and state prosecutors who were the subject of an exhaustive investigation regarding their participation in the death of Héctor (Cuén),” the federal government said. The attorney general’s office said in a statement Sunday.

The news appears to further complicate the situation of Governor Rocha, who belongs to the president Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party. Sheinbaum has so far strongly supported Rocha. But Rocha did little or nothing to quell the bloody fighting that erupted after July 25 between rival factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel’s two capos.

Instead, Rocha sought to downplay the shootings, killings, kidnappings and cartel roadblocks that have sprung up around the state capital, Culiacan. On Thursday, hours before gunmen opened fire on the offices of a local newspaper, Governor Rocha said there was “no reason to worry” and that “everything was under control “.

Rocha – a close associate of the former president Andrés Manuel López Obradorwho left office on September 30 – has been involved in the events of July 25 from the start, although he denies it.

Zambada said that Joaquín Guzmán López – a leader of a rival faction of the cartel whom he nonetheless trusted – had invited him to the meeting to help iron out the fierce political rivalry between Governor Rocha and Cuén, who were in conflict.

Zambada was famous for evading capture for decades due to his incredibly tight, loyal and sophisticated personal security apparatus. But he said that on July 25, he left most of his security team behind and entered with only two bodyguards because he expected Cuén and Governor Rocha to be present.

Since then, there has been no news of the two bodyguards.

The fact that Zambada knowingly left all his security behind to meet the politicians suggests that he viewed such a meeting as credible and feasible. So is the idea that Zambada, as leader of the oldest wing of the Sinaloa cartel, could act as arbiter in the state’s political conflicts.

Rocha denied knowing about or attending the meeting in which Zambada was kidnapped, saying he had borrowed a businessman’s private jet to fly to California that day. But even though there is a flight record for this plane, Rocha never showed the immigration documents he would have filed to enter the United States, which raises doubts about his presence on board the plane. ‘plane.

Zambada pleaded not guilty last month in a U.S. drug trafficking case that accuses him of participating in assassination plots and ordering torture.

Zambada’s perceived betrayal led to fierce battles between his supportersknown as the “Mayitos”, and supporters of Guzmán López, who – as one of the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Gúzman – was co-leader of the faction known as from “Chapitos”.

According to an indictment released last year by the U.S. Department of Justice, the “Chapitos” and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution and hot peppers to torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed, dead or alive, to the tigers”. El Chapo’s sons were among 28 Sinaloa cartel members indicted as part of a massive investigation into fentanyl trafficking announced in April 2023.

El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a Colorado maximum security prison after being convicted in 2019 for charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons offenses.