Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is blaming the Biden-Harris administration for the wave of cartel violence currently engulfing the state of Sinaloa, Mexico.
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During a news conference, Obrador claimed the administration’s decision to arrest one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s top leaders, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, sparked the chaos happening in the region, according to Breitbart News.
Sinaloa has historically been a stronghold for the cartel. It has been embroiled in violence since Zambada Garcia’s capture on July 25, 2024. A faction known as the Chapitos, who are loyal to former cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been clashing with Zambada’s supporters, which has led to a serious escalation in violence.
The fighting has resulted in the deaths of at least 48 people, with unofficial estimates suggesting the actual number is much higher. When asked whether the U.S. is responsible for the violence, Lopez Obrador answered, “Yes, of course they are.” He argued that the U.S. government needs to “internalize that they can’t just act like that without taking into account Mexico’s government.”
Lopez Obrador claimed that there was an accord between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Chapitos faction so that Joaquin Guzman Lopez could surrender and capture Zambada. The Mexican politician questioned why the USDOJ changed the detention status of Ovidio Guzman, one of the members of the Chapitos, at the same time that his brother was helping capture Zambada.
“If we are facing this situation in Sinaloa it is because they took that decision,” Lopez Obrador said. “In Sinaloa, we didn’t have the violence that we have now.”
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Zambada Garcia was arraigned on September 13 in Brooklyn, New York, according to the Justice Department.
“El Mayo, the co-founder and leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, has been charged with overseeing a multi-billion-dollar conspiracy to flood American communities with narcotics, including deadly fentanyl,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. He continued, accusing El Mayo of building and leading “The Sinaloa Cartel’s network of manufacturers, assassins, traffickers, and money launderers responsible for kidnapping and murdering people in both the United States and Mexico, and importing lethal quantities of fentanyl, heroin, meth, and cocaine into the United States.”
As Garland suggested, the cartel’s reach is not limited to Mexico. U.S. authorities in June arrested 36 individuals tied to a drug trafficking network operated by the cartel. The operation, which spanned multiple states, including California, Arizona, and Oregon, resulted in the confiscation of significant amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and firearms.
“With this takedown, the Justice Department has dealt yet another blow to the Sinaloa Cartel and its associates,” Garland said in a statement at the time.
That is in addition to previous confiscations suspected to be from the same drug smuggling and distribution ring. That’s enough drugs to kill millions, and while methamphetamine may be locally produced, the fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin come in across the southern border.
The officers involved in this bust would necessarily have come from several agencies, but the Border Patrol involvement indicates Homeland Security was included in the investigation and the bust, while the Justice Department will be involved as the case moves forward.
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These developments come at a time when U.S. authorities are concerned about the prevalence of drug trafficking carried out by Mexican cartels. A significant proportion of drug overdoses that have occurred in the United States are caused by fentanyl smuggled into the country and laced into common street drugs, which means many who overdose aren’t aware they ingested the opioid.
