Another United States investigation into President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s alleged links to drug trafficking came to light this Thursday. The New York Times (NYT) revealed that US authorities They examined accusations who accused people close to the president of having received money from drug cartels, including his children.
The report was published this Thursday, hours after López Obrador reported in his morning press conference that he had received a questionnaire from the media to clarify the findings presented in the publication.
According to the NYT, the accusations came from three informants, who accused close collaborators of the president of meeting with Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García, boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, and of receiving millions of dollars from the criminal group ‘Los Zetas’. . Another source suggested that drug cartels have in their hands a video of López Obrador’s children receiving money from organized crime.
Despite the findings, the NYT acknowledged that US officials did not find no direct connection between López Obrador and criminal organizations.
The investigation is archived. People familiar with the matter consulted by the newspaper believe that this occurred because the United States government was not interested in presenting accusations against the leader of one of its main trading partners and a direct collaborator in the fight against fentanyl. But mainly, due to the failed case against the former Secretary of National Defense, Salvador Cienfuegosaccused by the United States of drug trafficking in 2020 and exonerated by the Mexican Government due to lack of evidence.
Unlike the investigation that ProPública released about alleged financing of López Obrador’s 2006 presidential campaign with money from the Sinaloa Cartel, this one focuses on events that occurred after the president took office in 2018.
What does the NYT report say about AMLO’s alleged links to drug trafficking?
The information released by the NYT this Thursday was obtained from records and of three people familiar with the matter They are not authorized to speak publicly.
The records contain information obtained from three informants who spoke with the US officials in charge of the case. One of them told them that one of López Obrador’s closest confidants met with Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambadabefore his victory in the 2018 presidential election.
A second source indicated that, after López Obrador’s victory, a founder of the ‘Los Zetas’ cartel paid $4 million to two of his allies in the hope of getting out of prison. The name of the person involved was not mentioned.
While a third source suggested that the the president’s children had been recorded while they received money from organized crime and that the videos are in the hands of cartels.
Two of the people familiar with the matter said agents in charge of the case independently tracked the payments and found that at least one was made during the president’s second visit to Badiraguato, Sinaloa, when he shook hands with Consuelo Loera, the mother of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.
What did AMLO say about the NYT report?
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported this morning that the NYT notified him about the report in a letter sent to the spokesperson for the Presidency, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, and requested responses to the aforementioned accusations through a questionnaire.
“Yesterday, the New York Times correspondent sent Jesús a questionnaire but in a tone that you will now see, threatening, arrogant, letting us know that they are carrying out an investigation with information from the DEA where people linked to me received money , no longer in 2006, but in 2018, they even gave money to my children and they gave Jesus an ultimatum until 5 in the afternoon to answer, so I told Jesus We are going to answer them tomorrow and we are going to see what they are holdingto inform,” he said during his morning conference this Thursday.
In total there were 6 questions that the American newspaper sent to López Obrador about the report. When answering them, he assured that it is false information and “slander.” “Are some professional slanderersworld famous,” he attacked.
Although he ruled out that relations with the United States would be affected for this investigation, he indicated that he does expect a response from the US government.
“If they don’t want to act with transparency, that’s their business, but Any democratic government defending freedoms would have to report“, He launched.
