Blurring the lines between infiltrating and aiding organized crime, U.S. drug-enforcement agents have been supplying Mexican cartels with arms and helping them launder millions of dollars of drug money. In recent months the U.S. government has even been accused of protecting and turning a blind eye to the dealings of the world’s most wanted drug lord by a senior member of his organization.
Welcome to the murky world of counternarcotics operations. Such measures are justified by the powers that be as a necessary means to an end, but at what point do immunity bargains and sting operations cross the line and become self-defeating?
A prominent member of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel awaiting trial in Chicago alleges that the U.S. government has been providing his organization with weapons and allowing them to smuggle drugs across the border in return for information on rival criminal gangs.
Vicente Jesus Zambada Niebla, 36, was arrested in Mexico in March 2009 and extradited to the United States eleven months later. He is the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who runs the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious kingpin who last year succeeded Osama Bin Laden as the world’s most wanted man.
Vicente Zambada stands accused of smuggling tons of cocaine and heroin into the United States. His federal trial is expected to begin later this year.
It is rare for high-ranked drug lords from Mexico or Colombia to go on public trial in the United States; most tend to make behind-closed door agreements with prosecutors to divulge information in return for a reduced sentence. But Zambada is not going quietly, raising eyebrows on both sides of the border with a series of stunning allegations.
Zamabada does not deny drug trafficking, but claims he did so with the permission of senior U.S. officials. In pre-trial proceedings he claimed immunity under a deal allegedly struck between the U.S. government and the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for information on rival organizations.
The defendant says the agreement protects him from federal prosecution, as the cartel’s leadership was granted “carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States” between 2004 and 2009. Zambada also claims the Sinaloa Cartel received weapons through operation “Fast and Furious” as part of the ongoing arrangement.
Under this operation, which began in September 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed 2,000 firearms to be sold illegally to gangs in Mexico, with the aim of tracing the weapons and prosecuting the criminals. Similar ATF “gunwalking” operations had been running since 2006.
The botched Fast and Furious operation came under congressional scrutiny after it was linked to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December 2010. An investigative report found that federal agents lost track of nearly 1,400 weapons, most of which were supplied to the Sinaloa Cartel.
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