In a recent interview in late July, Chris Swecker, former FBI deputy director, made a blunt statement regarding the Mexican government: “There is no doubt in my mind that the Mexican government is complicit with the cartels.”
According to El Universal, Swecker made the statement during a video interview about the arrests of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons.
Swecker noted: “Anyone who has pursued drug-related crimes for as long as I did on the border and in Miami, when all the action was happening in South Florida, knows that the reason all the activity went to Mexico is because the cartels can bribe the Mexican government and establish trafficking routes without anyone bothering you.”
According to Infobae, Swecker said that drug cartels operate by buying “federals, municipal presidents, police officers, public servants and even those who are very high up.”
For the former deputy director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, the question is not “whether the government is helping them [the cartels].” “They [members of the governments] are part of the cartels,” he said.
Swecker said that things in Mexico could get worse after the imprisonment of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
“Typically when you make arrests like these, high-level ones, one of the big leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo’s organization, things tend to get violent, even more so, and violence is the norm in Mexico,” Swecker analyzed according to Infobae.
Swecker stressed that things can get even more complicated within the criminal organizations themselves: “When you take out leaders of the cartel, other leaders begin to buy power, rivals begin to move and things begin to get extremely bloody.”
CNN reports that “El Mayo” and Joaquín Guzman López were arrested by US authorities in El Paso, Texas. The two face charges of directing criminal operations of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.
Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, declared that the Government of Mexico did not participate in the arrests, but that they will continue to collaborate with the United States Government,
Sources: El Universal, INFOBAE, CNN
