The six-year term of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador ended in September 2024 amid a surge of violence in the state of Sinaloa — a crisis he blamed on the United States. Just a few months earlier, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the longtime leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, had been captured by U.S. authorities under murky circumstances.
Details have emerged only piecemeal, although from the outset Zambada claimed he had been kidnapped. As details have trickled out, one element has remained constant, while another is still in dispute. The constant is that Los Chapitos, the faction of the cartel led by the sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known as “El Chapo,” betrayed Zambada, their father’s former partner, and handed him over to U.S. authorities against his will, in hopes of securing favorable treatment from the U.S. justice system. What remains unclear is the extent of Washington’s involvement in planning a covert operation on Mexican soil, one that has since triggered a spiral of violence.
The murky episode is explored in two recent books written by former officials who witnessed it, if not from the front row, then certainly from seats close to the center of power. Last week, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) published Pueblo, a lengthy essay interwoven with his personal experiences. Coincidentally, this Wednesday, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar (2021-2025) is presenting his memoir, Borderlands, in Mexico City. The two politicians served at the same time and developed a cordial relationship that ultimately unraveled, largely because of the Zambada affair.
The episode took place on July 25, 2024. Washington has consistently maintained that it was not involved in the operation and that U.S. authorities learned they were about to receive the sought-after cartel leader only after the plane carrying him had already taken off from Culiacán and was approaching the U.S. border.
Also aboard the Beechcraft King Air, which landed in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, was Joaquín Guzmán López, son of El Chapo and the architect of the operation, who was prepared to surrender himself. The pilot, a trusted associate of Los Chapitos, was Mauro Alberto Núñez Ojeda, known as “Jando.”
La Mayiza, the other major faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, made up of Zambada’s supporters, launched a campaign of revenge. The internecine war has now lasted for more than two years and has left hundreds dead, disappeared and displaced. As recently as July, the FBI put on display in a museum the aircraft used in the operation, a move that reignited questions in Mexico about Washington’s role.
The accounts
The former ambassador says the United States provided no resources for Mayo’s capture and describes the operation as a “betrayal” by Joaquín Guzmán López, who was El Mayo’s godson. Salazar maintains that Zambada’s handover came as “a complete surprise” and that he learned about it only after it had happened.
According to his account, Salazar quickly moved to reassure the Mexican president that the United States “had not been directly involved [...] in any way.”
“[López Obrador] had to understand that the United States had no prior knowledge of this abduction, and that under no circumstances had we conducted an unsanctioned operation on Mexican soil, which would have been a grave violation of their sovereignty.”
The book says that the plane switched off its tracking systems and reappeared near the border. Only then ”a call was put out to U.S. law enforcement." According to the former diplomat, there were only three people aboard the Beechcraft: the two traffickers and the pilot. While Guzmán López stepped off the aircraft on his own, U.S. agents had to board it to retrieve El Mayo.
“The agents then carefully boarded the aircraft and found a heavily sedated figure zip-tied in his seat. To their surprise, it was Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada,” he writes. As for Jando, he was allowed to return to Mexico, though not with the aircraft.
López Obrador did not respond to that memorandum from Salazar, nor did he meet with him again. In his book, the former president says the El Mayo affair was “the only serious incident or disagreement” with the administration of Joe Biden, who was also nearing the end of his term.
The former Mexican president directly accuses the U.S. State Department and U.S. security agencies of reaching an agreement with El Chapo Guzmán’s sons “in an irresponsible, clandestine and extraterritorial manner” to “kidnap and transport Zambada to the United States on a private aircraft.”
López Obrador says that as soon as he learned of the operation, he asked the heads of the Attorney General’s Office, the National Guard and the Armed Forces whether there had been “any possible involvement” on Mexico’s part, and that “the answer was an unequivocal no.”
The former president then cites a letter that Salazar sent to then–attorney general Alejandro Gertz two days later. The letter is significant because, according to López Obrador’s book, it reveals at least some prior knowledge on Washington’s part, contrasting with its categorical denials.
“Ambassador Ken Salazar wrote in writing on July 27 that ‘law enforcement’ in his country ‘had been informed on several prior occasions that Joaquín Guzmán López was considering surrendering to U.S. authorities,’” the former president writes.
López Obrador adds that, in the letter, Salazar said that “surprisingly, at 10:30 a.m. on July 25, they were informed that Guzmán López would surrender and enter U.S. territory on a private flight, and that at 2:40 p.m., ‘once the aircraft was already in the air, they were informed again that Ismael Zambada might also be on board.’”
The ‘hateful revenge’
It is difficult to determine at what point the Mexican authorities were informed of what Washington was learning. Did Mexico know that Guzmán López was planning to surrender to the United States? Did it learn on the morning of July 25 that this would be the day? Did it find out in the afternoon, as soon as the U.S. supposedly did, that El Mayo was part of Guzmán López’s plan and was also aboard the aircraft? Or did it learn of everything only after it had happened?
Documents related to the U.S. case against Jando, the pilot, suggest that Mayo’s capture took place at a time when Washington was indeed negotiating with Los Chapitos, and that it was not solely an act of individual betrayal.
Two developments are particularly noteworthy in this regard. The U.S. government, by then under Donald Trump’s second term, asked the courts to keep the indictment against Jando under seal “to protect the safety of cooperating witnesses” and “to ensure the safety of additional witnesses and their family members.” By that point, Ovidio Guzmán, known as “El Ratón” — another of El Chapo’s sons who had been detained in the United States since 2023 — had agreed to serve as a cooperating witness. Shortly afterward, 17 of El Ratón’s relatives, including his mother, arrived in the United States to be placed under protection.
López Obrador argues that, aside from the lack of respect for Mexico’s sovereignty, the violence in Sinaloa would not have escalated to such an extent if Zambada had been arrested by Mexican security forces: “The odious revenge would have been avoided,” he writes.
Salazar, for his part, laments López Obrador’s reaction, saying the two ceased to be “friends” and that “the open door I’d enjoyed with the Mexican president appeared to have been slammed shut.”
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