Ken Salazar says US did not orchestrate El Mayo Zambada capture, AMLO did not respond

In July 2024, drug‑lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was seized after his aircraft landed in Doña Ana, New Mexico. Former U.S. ambassador Ken Salazar maintains that the United States had no prior knowledge of the operation and that no American agents acted on Mexican soil. Salazar says the capture only occurred once the plane was on U.S. territory and that the FBI did not plan the “seizure.”

Salazar recounts sending at least four formal messages – and a personal note – to then‑president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) offering an explanation and a meeting, but he received no reply. He also denies ever receiving or possessing evidence that the Sinaloa governor Rubén Rocha Moya or President López Obrador had any financial ties to the cartel, stating, “I never had that information.”

U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn have asked a federal judge to impose a life sentence on Zambada, citing his decades‑long leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel. Separate reports note that Zambada spent several hours at a federal building and a local hospital in El Paso, Texas, before his first court appearance, and that the pilot who flew the plane was later deported to Mexico.

The episode has sparked a diplomatic row, with Mexican authorities demanding further information from the United States and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum calling for unity in defending the rights of Mexicans in the U.S. while stressing that the dispute should not damage bilateral relations.