American regulation enforcement officers spent years trying into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, met with and took hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from drug cartels after he took workplace, in response to U.S. information and three folks aware of the matter.
The inquiry, which has not been beforehand reported, uncovered data pointing to potential hyperlinks between highly effective cartel operatives and Mexican advisers and officers near the president whereas he ruled the nation.
However the US by no means opened a proper investigation into Mr. López Obrador, and the officers concerned in the end shelved the inquiry. They concluded that the U.S. authorities had little urge for food to pursue allegations in opposition to the chief of one in all America’s high allies, mentioned the three folks aware of the case, who weren’t approved to talk publicly.
Mr. López Obrador referred to as the allegations “utterly false,” responding to questions from The New York Occasions on Thursday. He mentioned the information of the inquiry wouldn’t “in any method” have an effect on Mexico’s relationship with the US, however mentioned he anticipated a response from the U.S. authorities.
“Does this diminish the belief the Mexican authorities has in the US?” Mr. López Obrador mentioned 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 felony organizations.
American officers declined to remark.
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 informed them was independently confirmed.
For instance, information present that the investigators have been informed by an informant that one in all 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 unique supply informed 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 data 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. regulation enforcement officers additionally independently tracked funds from folks they believed to be cartel operatives to intermediaries for Mr. López Obrador, two of the folks aware of the inquiry mentioned.
A minimum of a kind of funds, they mentioned, was made across the identical 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 healthier generally 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 hundreds of 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 costs being introduced.
For the US, pursuing felony costs in opposition to high international officers is a uncommon and sophisticated endeavor. Constructing a authorized case in opposition to Mr. López Obrador could be notably difficult. The final time the US filed felony costs in opposition to a high Mexican official, it in the end dropped them after his arrest brought about 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 change into probably the most contentious points in American politics. It’s a main concern for voters within the lead as much as the presidential election this fall.
Mexico can also be a high American buying and selling associate and the only most essential collaborator in U.S. efforts to sluggish illicit medication like fentanyl from crossing the southern border.
U.S. regulation enforcement companies have jurisdiction to research and convey costs in opposition to officers of different international locations if they will present a connection to narcotics shifting throughout the border into the US.
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 Court docket in Manhattan.
Federal prosecutors in New York additionally secured a corruption conviction final yr in opposition to Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public safety secretary, persuading a jury that he had taken hundreds of 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 lively, the revelation that U.S. regulation enforcement officers have been quietly inspecting corruption allegations in opposition to 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 geared toward influencing the nation’s presidential election in June, wherein his protégé, the previous Mexico Metropolis mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is main the race to interchange him. He steered the studies might complicate talks on migration and fentanyl with the U.S. authorities, and mentioned 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 in opposition to medication in the event that they, or one in all their establishments, is leaking data and harming me?” Mr. López Obrador mentioned 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 mentioned that the U.S. homeland safety adviser informed Mexico “that it is a closed difficulty 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 aware of it mentioned, was brought about 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 costs in opposition to 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 Normal Cienfuegos of utilizing the powers of his workplace to assist a violent felony group referred to as the H-2 cartel conduct its drug trafficking operations.
His arrest on the Los Angeles airport provoked a furor throughout the Mexican authorities, notably among the many leaders of the nation’s armed forces, which have assumed larger obligations and energy below Mr. López Obrador.
The president mentioned the fees have been “fabricated” and his administration launched greater than 700 pages of communications intercepted by U.S. brokers that purported to indicate felony exercise however have been forged as inconclusive.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, which already had a checkered historical past as protagonists in a drug struggle seen as bloody and futile, suffered an incredible blow to its relationship with the Mexican authorities.
Simply weeks after the arrest came about, the U.S. Justice Division, below heavy strain from Mr. López Obrador, reversed itself and dismissed the indictment, sending Normal Cienfuegos again to Mexico.
The episode not solely broken longtime safety preparations between the 2 international locations, but additionally left a deep impression on regulation enforcement officers north of the border, lots of whom noticed the failed case as a cautionary story about endeavor related efforts in opposition to different high-ranking Mexican officers.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting.
