Nearly two years after Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada was arrested in the United States in what has been described as an alleged betrayal by Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the circumstances surrounding the incident continue to draw scrutiny from both Mexican and U.S. officials.
Each country has presented a different version of events. While U.S. officials maintain that no government agency was involved in the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López, Mexican officials argue the United States knows more than it has disclosed about how a private plane carrying two of Mexico's most powerful drug lords was able to enter U.S. airspace without Mexican authorities being informed.
One of the officials caught between both governments was former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, who spoke with Univisión's Ilia Calderón about what unfolded in the aftermath of Zambada's arrest.
During the exclusive interview, Salazar said he sent an urgent message to then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador after learning of Zambada's arrest.
Salazar said he wanted to make clear that the operation had not taken place in Mexico and that U.S. authorities had not participated in it.
After López Obrador did not respond, Salazar said he met with then-Attorney General Merrick Garland later that night to draft an official statement for the Mexican government, stressing that neither the aircraft, the pilot nor the operation that led to Zambada's arrest involved the United States.
As reported by Infobae México, the former ambassador said he sent the statement directly to López Obrador and even offered to meet with him to discuss the operation. Salazar said he made four formal attempts to contact López Obrador, but all of them went unanswered.
"By Monday, it was evident that something had gone very wrong. Although I was still the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, the open door I had once enjoyed with the Mexican president appeared to have suddenly closed," Salazar wrote in his book, Borderlands: My Fight for a More Inclusive America.
Just last week, Mexican officials again questioned the credibility of the U.S. account. Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said that if an undercover FBI operation on Mexican soil were to be confirmed, it would amount to a clear violation of Mexico's sovereignty. President Claudia Sheinbaum, meanwhile, suggested Salazar had not been truthful about how the events unfolded.
"So far, it appears they did lie to the Mexican government. Who makes deals with organized crime?" Sheinbaum said. "What agreements did that agency, or whoever participated, have with the criminal organization?" she added, referring to the Sinaloa Cartel. "In this case, everything seems to indicate that the ambassador (Salazar) lied."
During her July 7 press conference, Sheinbaum said that "when an ambassador lies, if he did lie, he is not only lying to the Mexican government but also to the government he represents."
Despite the jabs taken by the Mexican government, Salazar emphasized in his interview with Univisión that "the truth is the truth," suggesting he did not lie about how things unfolded.
