Updated on: July 7, 2026 / 1:59 PM EDT
/ CBS/AFP
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Mexico said Tuesday it is investigating whether its sovereignty was violated by the United States in the 2024 capture of drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, in the latest flareup of diplomatic tensions over Washington's war on cartels. The inquiry comes after the FBI displayed in an exhibition the plane used to bring most-wanted Zambada, co-founder of the notorious Sinaloa cartel, to the United States. "If one of the U.S. agencies participated in this operation, they would be violating international treaties and the (Mexican) constitution," President Claudia Sheinbaum said at her daily press conference. Zambada was arrested in the United States in July 2024 alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is also imprisoned. When Guzman Lopez pleaded guilty to U.S. narcotrafficking charges last December, he admitted to having kidnapped Zambada to bring him to the United States — a betrayal meant to win favor with U.S. authorities. According to details revealed in Guzman's plea deal, Zambada was ambushed, loaded onto a plane, drugged and spirited across the border to the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said in 2024 that no U.S. agency had participated in the operation, Mexican government secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said at the morning news conference. "The versions are contradictory. Someone lied," she said.
