Mexico suggests the U.S. made a deal with a Mexican drug lord to get his brother transferred out of prison

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Prosecutors in Mexico suggested Thursday that U.S. authorities made a deal with a Mexican drug lord who turned himself and another capo over to obtain the transfer of his brother from a U.S. prison.

The Mexican Attorney General’s Office also accused U.S. authorities of failing to respond to requests for information in the case. The office also said the small plane the two flew to the United States in July had multiple registrations and identification numbers, some of which were fake.

U.S. officials have denied any involvement in the plot or the flight, saying they learned of it only after the plane took off from northern Mexico.

It was the latest chapter in the bizarre saga of two Mexican drug lords, one of whom allegedly kidnapped the other and flew him to an airport near El Paso, Texas.

The Mexican government has previously announced it intends to charge Joaquín Guzmán López with treason, but not because of his leadership of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which was founded by his father, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Instead, Mexican prosecutors are charging the younger Guzmán with apparently kidnapping Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada — a senior drug lord from a rival faction of the cartel — forced him onto a plane and took him north.

The office said two of Zambada’s bodyguards — one of them a police officer — who went missing after the kidnapping were apparently killed.

The young Guzmán apparently intended to surrender to the US authorities, but he could have taken Zambada with him as a reward to gain his previously arrested half-brother, Ovidio Guzmantransferred from a US prison.

Mexican prosecutors suggested this was true, saying that “the link between Ovidio “G’s” (custody) status, his brother Joaquin’s involvement in the alleged kidnapping of Ismael (Zambada) … are the main areas of interest in the investigation.”

In late July, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons announced a change in the status of Ovidio Guzman’s custody, but did not provide details. Since then, U.S. and Mexican officials have said Ovidio is still in custody, but not necessarily in the same location.

Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said that Ovidio Guzman — a high-value prisoner who allegedly led the Sinaloa cartel’s efforts to produce and traffic the synthetic opioid fentanyl — “is not on the street.”

“He’s in prison,” Salazar said, “and we’re going to try him the way the Department of Justice does.”

Mexican prosecutors also alleged that the plane the two men were allegedly flying on had multiple registrations, some falsified, and that “the approach and landing of the aircraft in this country (the US) was authorized by the appropriate agencies of the US government.”

Mexican prosecutors also say they have asked U.S. authorities for information about the flight a total of five times and that they have “not received any response to date.”

In a statement, federal prosecutors also said they would question prosecutors, police and forensic experts from the northern state of Sinaloa — home to the namesake cartel — about their investigation of the walled recreation complex where the kidnapping and killings occurred.

Earlier, federal prosecutors accused their counterparts from Sinaloa of providing information that later turned out to be false.

Zambada said Guzmán, whom he trusted, had invited him to the meeting to help resolve a bitter political rivalry between two local politicians. Zambada was known to evade capture for decades thanks to his extremely tight, loyal and sophisticated personal security apparatus.

The fact that he would consciously leave all that behind to meet with politicians suggests that Zambada considered such a meeting credible and feasible. The same goes for the idea that Zambada, as leader of the Sinaloa cartel’s oldest wing, could act as an arbiter in political disputes in the state.

The Sinaloa governor has denied knowing about or attending the meeting where Zambada was kidnapped.

The whole case turned out to be embarrassing for the Mexican government, which had no idea until the facts about the arrest of two drug lords on US territory were revealed.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has long viewed any US intervention as an insult and refused to confront the Mexican drug cartelsHe recently questioned the U.S. policy of detaining drug cartel leaders, asking: “Why don’t they change this policy?”