The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has attributed the rise in insecurity in Sinaloa to the actions of the United States, pointing out the serious consequences derived from its controversial intervention in the capture of the leader of the cartel in that state, Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, carried out without prior notification to the Mexican authorities.
Sheinbaum has emphasized that, before that secret operation by Washington to extract Zambada from the country with the help of the Guzmán López faction and transfer him to the United States, Sinaloa "had less than one homicide daily" and that the internal fracture of the cartel "generated a violence that has been contained."
"That does not mean that those who commit crimes should not be stopped, but it must be done, if there is information from a foreign government, with national institutions," the head of state insisted this Monday at her usual morning conference, held after her visit to Sinaloa this Sunday.
"When it is done this way, then violence decreases. Sinaloa is a demonstration that interventionism, with the breaking of a criminal group, caused the situation we have today," Sheinbaum has maintained, defending that institutional coordination is key to preventing an increase in criminality.
The president has reiterated that her Administration not only promotes measures to strengthen the institutions responsible for combating organized crime but also policies to address the structural causes of violence and pursue corrupt officials involved in these networks.
Zambada — sentenced two months ago in the United States to life imprisonment for drug trafficking and organized crime — was arrested on July 25, 2024, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near El Paso, after landing on a private plane alongside Joaquín Guzmán López, son of the former leader of the cartel, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán.
In a letter released last August, 'El Mayo' claimed that he was "kidnapped" by Guzmán, who handed him over against his will as part of a pact with U.S. authorities to obtain benefits and "receive certain judicial concessions for both him and his brother Ovidio."
In September 2024, a few weeks before Sheinbaum's inauguration as president, an open confrontation broke out between the factions loyal to Zambada and Guzmán, triggering one of the most serious security crises in recent years in Sinaloa.