Sheinbaum criticizes lack of coordination in the capture of the “Mayo”

Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday criticized the United States because “there was no coordination” in the capture of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, whose arrest on U.S. soil unleashed a wave of violence in Sinaloa, a state in the northwest of the country that has more than 40 murders in two weeks.

Sheinbaum backed the statements of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who hours earlier attributed the internal struggle within the Sinaloa Cartel to the agreement by Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán, to hand over Zambada to the United States on July 25 on a plane.

He also questioned the alleged negotiations between Washington and the Los Chapitos faction, the sons of El Chapo, as shown by the change in the prison status of Ovidio Guzmán, another of the drug lord’s sons detained in that country, after the arrest of Zambada, one of the co-founders of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“I believe that the important thing in the relationship with the United States, with the agencies, is that there is coordination. In this case, everything indicates that there was no coordination, but rather that there was an action based on issues that have not been fully explained, such as the release of one drug lord to arrest another,” Sheinbaum told the media.

The future president, who will take office on October 1, made these statements after López Obrador said in his morning press conference that the United States “is jointly responsible” for the current drug trafficking violence in Sinaloa for “having carried out that operation” against Zambada.

López Obrador said that this operation “cannot be correct because people were killed, it was totally illegal and agents from the United States Department of Justice were waiting for Mr. Mayo.”

Sheinbaum agreed that “what can never be accepted is that there is no coordination and collaboration.”

“We are of course interested in building peace, in ensuring there is no violence, we are also interested in ensuring that fentanyl does not reach the United States, but the United States has to do the same in its country, we have to do the same in our country, and coordinate, collaborate,” said the future head of state..