When a prominent politician in the Mexican state of Sinaloa was shot and killed there late last month, state authorities said he was a victim of an attempted car jacking. That did little to quell speculation in the media that the killing was somehow related to high-profile news the same day: the arrests near El Paso of two leaders of the Sinaloa cartel.
Now one of the drug lords, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, claims the killing of Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda occurred during an ambush by fellow trafficker Joaquín Guzmán López to force Zambada on to a plane.
“I am aware that the official version being told by Sinaloa state authorities is that Héctor Cuen was shot in the evening of July 25th at a gas station by two men on a motorcycle who wanted to rob his pick-up truck,” Zambada said in a statement released Saturday by his lawyer. “That is not what happened. He was killed at the same time, and in the same place, where I was kidnapped.”
The lawyer, Frank Perez, said he released the statement “to set the record straight and counter the false narratives.”
While early reports said Zambada, 76, had been tricked into boarding the plane — one version had him expecting to inspect clandestine airstrips used for drug smuggling — Perez claims the 38-year-old Guzmán López lured the older cartel figure into a trap by calling him to a meeting in the state capital of Culican “to help resolve differences” between” Cuén Ojeda and Sinaloa’s governor, Rubén Rocha Moya.
Cuén Ojeda, a former mayor of Culiacán who ran for governor in 2016 but lost, had also served as rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa. Zambada said Cuén Ojeda’s dispute with Rocha was “over who should lead that institution.”
Rocha did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Zambada and Guzmán López were taken into custody by U.S. federal agents after landing in a small Beechcraft King Air plane at a private airport in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, just outside El Paso.
Zambada has pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to his leadership role of the Sinaloa Cartel, a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise responsible for smuggling illicit drugs around the globe. The cartel’s co-founder and longtime godfather known for having police, military, and political figures in his pocket, he had never been jailed previously despite spending decades as one of America’s most wanted fugitives.
The Justice Department is expected to transfer Zambada’s case to Brooklyn, where he also faces charges, to the same court that hosted the trial of his longtime partner, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, now serving a life sentence after a 2019 conviction.
El Chapo’s son, Guzmán López, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges in Chicago, where he and his younger brother, Ovidio Guzmán López are accused of being co-leaders of a cartel faction known as Los Chapitos known for manufacturing and exporting illicit fentanyl.
In the statement released by Perez, Zambada said he went to a ranch and event center called Huertos del Pedregal just outside of Culiacan and arrived early for a meeting scheduled to start at 11:00 a.m. He said he also expected to see Iván Guzmán Salazar, an older half-brother of Guzmán López who remains a fugitive in Mexico and leads a Sinaloa cartel faction known as Los Chapitos, along with another sibling.
“I saw a large number of armed men wearing green military uniforms who I assumed were gunmen for Joaquín Guzmán and his brothers,” Zambada said.
Zambada said he brought his own bodyguards, including two identified as José Rosario Heras López, a Commander in the State Judicial Police of Sinaloa, and Rodolfo Chaidez, described as “a long-time member of my security team.”
“While walking toward the meeting area, I saw Héctor Cuen and one of his aides. I greeted them briefly before proceeding inside to a room that had a table filled with fruit,” Zambada said. “I saw Joaquín Guzmán Lopez, whom I have known since he was a young boy, and he gestured for me to follow him. Trusting the nature of the meeting and the people involved, I followed without hesitation. I was led into another room which was dark.”
Zambada continued: “As soon as I set foot inside of that room, I was ambushed. A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the bed of a pickup truck.”
Zambada said he was “subjected to physical abuse, resulting in significant injuries to my back, knee and wrists,” and driven to a landing strip “about 20 or 25 minutes away, where I was forced onto a private plane.”
Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Hamilton from San Francisco.