American legislation enforcement officers spent years trying into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, met with and took thousands and thousands of {dollars} from drug cartels after he took workplace, in line with U.S. information and three folks conversant in the matter.
The inquiry, which has not been beforehand reported, uncovered info pointing to potential hyperlinks between highly effective cartel operatives and Mexican advisers and officers near the president whereas he ruled the nation.
However the USA by no means opened a proper investigation into Mr. López Obrador, and the officers concerned finally shelved the inquiry. They concluded that the U.S. authorities had little urge for food to pursue allegations towards the chief of one among America’s high allies, stated the three folks conversant in the case, who weren’t licensed to talk publicly.
Mr. López Obrador referred to as the allegations “utterly false,” responding to questions from The New York Occasions on Thursday. He stated the information of the inquiry wouldn’t “in any means” have an effect on Mexico’s relationship with the USA, however stated he anticipated a response from the U.S. authorities.
“Does this diminish the belief the Mexican authorities has in the USA?” Mr. López Obrador stated at an everyday information convention, including, “Time will inform.”
Drug cartels have lengthy infiltrated the Mexican state, from the bottom ranges to the higher reaches of presidency. They repay the police, manipulate mayors, co-opt senior officers and dominate broad swaths of the nation.
However whereas the latest efforts by the U.S. officers recognized attainable ties between the cartels and Mr. López Obrador’s associates, they didn’t discover any direct connections between the president himself and prison organizations.
“There is no such thing as a investigation into President López Obrador,” a spokesperson for the Justice Division stated. “The Justice Division has a accountability to evaluation any allegation.”
A lot of the knowledge collected by U.S. officers got here from informants whose accounts will be troublesome to corroborate and generally find yourself being incorrect. The investigators obtained the knowledge whereas trying into the actions of drug cartels, and it was not clear how a lot of what the informants instructed them was independently confirmed.
For instance, information present that the investigators have been instructed by an informant that one among Mr. López Obrador’s closest confidants met with Ismael Zambada García, a high chief of the Sinaloa drug cartel, earlier than his victory within the 2018 presidential election.
A distinct supply instructed them that after the president was elected, a founding father of the notoriously violent Zetas cartel paid $4 million to 2 of Mr. López Obrador’s allies within the hope of being launched from jail.
Investigators obtained info from a 3rd supply suggesting that drug cartels have been in possession of movies of the president’s sons selecting up drug cash, information present.
Mr. López Obrador denied all of the allegations made by the informants.
The U.S. legislation enforcement officers additionally independently tracked funds from folks they believed to be cartel operatives to intermediaries for Mr. López Obrador, two of the folks conversant in the inquiry stated.
At the least a kind of funds, they stated, was made across the similar time that Mr. López Obrador traveled to the state of Sinaloa in 2020 and met the mom of the drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who is best often known as El Chapo and is now serving a life sentence in an American federal jail.
Greater than a decade in the past, a separate investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration unearthed allegations that traffickers had donated thousands and thousands to Mr. López Obrador’s unsuccessful presidential marketing campaign in 2006. This inquiry, which was detailed by three media retailers final month, was closed with out expenses being introduced.
For the USA, pursuing prison expenses towards high international officers is a uncommon and complex endeavor. Constructing a authorized case towards Mr. López Obrador can be significantly difficult. The final time the USA filed prison expenses towards a high Mexican official, it finally dropped them after his arrest induced a diplomatic rift with Mexico.
The Biden administration has an unlimited stake in managing its relationship with Mr. López Obrador, who’s seen as indispensable to containing a surge in migration that has grow to be some of the contentious points in American politics. It’s a main concern for voters within the lead-up to the presidential election this fall.
Mexico can also be a high American buying and selling accomplice and the only most vital collaborator in U.S. efforts to gradual illicit medicine like fentanyl from crossing the southern border.
U.S. legislation enforcement businesses have jurisdiction to research and produce expenses towards officers of different nations if they will present a connection to narcotics shifting throughout the border into the USA.
Whereas it’s unusual for American brokers to pursue high international officers, it’s not unprecedented: The drug trial of Juan Orlando Hernández, the previous president of Honduras, started this week in Federal District Courtroom in Manhattan.
Federal prosecutors in New York additionally secured a corruption conviction final 12 months towards Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public safety secretary, persuading a jury that he had taken thousands and thousands of {dollars} in bribes from violent cartels he was meant to be pursuing.
Whereas efforts to scrutinize Mr. López Obrador’s allies are not energetic, the revelation that U.S. legislation enforcement officers have been quietly inspecting corruption allegations towards them might itself be damaging.
Final month’s media studies, together with one by ProPublica, a few U.S. inquiry into 2006 marketing campaign donations — for an election he didn’t win — ignited a firestorm in Mexico.
Mr. López Obrador publicly denounced the tales, implying they have been aimed toward influencing the nation’s presidential election in June, through which his protégé, the previous Mexico Metropolis mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is main the race to switch him. He advised the studies might complicate talks on migration and fentanyl with the U.S. authorities, and stated he thought of not receiving President Biden’s homeland safety adviser for a deliberate assembly within the Mexican capital.
“How are we going to be sitting on the desk speaking in regards to the battle towards medicine in the event that they, or one among their establishments, is leaking info and harming me?” Mr. López Obrador stated at an everyday information convention days after the tales printed.
After President Biden referred to as Mr. López Obrador, calming tensions, the Mexican international minister stated that the U.S. homeland safety adviser instructed Mexico “that this can be a closed problem for them.”
The Biden administration has dealt with Mr. López Obrador with nice care, avoiding public criticism in favor of repeatedly dispatching high officers to Mexico Metropolis to satisfy with him and press for sustained migration enforcement in personal.
The choice to let the latest inquiry go dormant, the folks conversant in it stated, was induced largely by the breakdown of a separate, extremely contentious corruption case. Within the closing months of the Trump administration in 2020, U.S. officers introduced expenses towards Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who served as Mexico’s protection secretary from 2012 to 2018.
In a federal indictment, unsealed in New York after a multiyear investigation named “Operation Padrino,” prosecutors accused Basic Cienfuegos of utilizing the powers of his workplace to assist a violent prison group referred to as the H-2 cartel conduct its drug trafficking operations.
His arrest on the Los Angeles airport provoked a furor inside the Mexican authorities, significantly among the many leaders of the nation’s armed forces, which have assumed larger obligations and energy below Mr. López Obrador.
The president stated the costs have been “fabricated” and his administration launched greater than 700 pages of communications intercepted by U.S. brokers that purported to indicate prison exercise however have been solid as inconclusive.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, which already had a checkered historical past as protagonists in a drug conflict seen as bloody and futile, suffered an incredible blow to its relationship with the Mexican authorities.
Simply weeks after the arrest befell, the U.S. Justice Division, below heavy stress from Mr. López Obrador, reversed itself and dismissed the indictment, sending Basic Cienfuegos again to Mexico.
The episode not solely broken longtime safety preparations between the 2 nations, but in addition left a deep impression on legislation enforcement officers north of the border, lots of whom noticed the failed case as a cautionary story about endeavor comparable efforts towards different high-ranking Mexican officers.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting.
