According to intelligence sources, the Navy has been receiving direct or indirect information from Los Chapitos, which has allowed it to land several blows, such as one in February, where they captured about thirty members of the Los Salazar criminal organization, who are linked to El Mayo Zambada, in Querétaro. Intelligence sources characterized it as the most delicate moment faced by the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, which began with a disagreement in the security cabinet, which could be resolved with information that arrived in real-time that it was a trap that, had her detention been maintained, could have caused the death of a large, unquantified number of innocent people. Mrs. Zambada was not detained on Thursday, as reported, but on Wednesday in Álamo, which belongs to the municipality of El Salado, which had been a sanctuary for the family for a long time. It would not be the first time they have used this tactic: during the 2021 federal elections, the threats, kidnappings, and murders carried out to suppress the vote were said to have been carried out by Los Mayos. The combination of risk analyses supported by U.S. intelligence information helped the security cabinet decide not to detain Mrs. Zambada, who was finally protected and released by “the harfuchos,” as Mexican security forces call agents of the Secretariat of Security. In fact, it was a good sign that, despite the differences and tensions that exist between García Harfuch and the secretaries of Defense, General Ricardo Treviño, and the Navy, Admiral Raymundo Pedro Morales, and between the latter two, they can still see the greater good. The Navy's special forces carried out the operation, presumably with the purpose of capturing her husband, Marco Antonio Zazueta Osuna, El Zazuetón, but in the action, they detained his wife, who was with him, and apparently a minor. Zazueta Osuna, who is not part of La Mayiza's criminal operation but is an elite courier for the organization, had been the bait to set the trap. As the marines saw it, it was a blow they needed to rebuild their credibility and reliability within the government, due to the declining returns from deep corruption in the customs and fuel smuggling, which are exacerbated by the impunity that the former secretary, Admiral Rafael Ojeda, practically has by decree. The capture and release of Mónica del Rosario Zambada, daughter of Ismael El Mayo Zambada, who for four decades was the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, was not just another event. Had she fallen into the trap, an intelligence source said, not only would the security cabinet have been affected, but it would also have meant a blow to the president that would only have been seen in magnitude depending on the number of people killed in that area. A question that remains in intelligence sources is whether the action that Los Chapitos planned to carry out to blame La Mayiza was unilateral to heat up the plaza of those loyal to Zambada, or if they had communication with people in political circles in Mexico City who suggested a massacre of innocent people, or if they only authorized the operation, as happened with another cartel, the Jalisco New Generation, when they approved the murder of Carlos Manzo, the former mayor of Uruapan. The Navy's retreat cannot be considered a defeat for the marines, nor a victory for the Defense or the Secretariat of Security. In Mexico, there is no process against her – the daughters of El Mayo, unlike the sons, have always kept a low profile – and in the United States, although since 2007 the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified two companies where she appeared as part of the Sinaloa Cartel. One was due to the illegality of the operation, for not having an arrest warrant, and the other was that taking her to prison would cause instability and violence. But it is also a confirmation of the betrayals that are being experienced to derail Sheinbaum's government, where the level of planned violence begins to include massacres of innocent people. What they did not tell her, according to sources, was that the target was not in the house, where they directed the Navy's special forces, who found his wife and a minor, assuming they would detain her. García Harfuch explained on Friday that “she was never detained” and was “temporarily” under custody to ensure everyone's safety, but above all, to verify if she had a judicial warrant in Mexico or the United States. In the end, the variable of instability prevailed, and they decided to release her. What Bastidas notified them about fit into that dynamic of pointing out the opponents of Los Chapitos. After the detention, the military presented several reasons in the security cabinet to release her. It did not become public because, internally, there was a strong disagreement on what to do with her. Being on the list affects those who do business with these companies, but it does not automatically trigger Department of Justice investigations. According to the information that has come to light, the Navy's intention was to detain her, but the Secretariat of Defense intervened. The information about her presence in El Salado was provided to the Navy by René Bastidas, nicknamed El 00, a drug trafficker with fragile loyalties who was arrested last year in Cabo San Lucas. Behind this was U.S. intelligence information that strengthened that position, which was supported by the Secretariat of Security. U.S. agencies informed the Mexican government that they had intercepted radio transmissions on the UHF frequency, which is used for short-range communications, with orders from Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, son of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, to local sicario bosses to prepare to go to that area and attack innocent people, to provoke a massacre and attribute it to La Mayiza, to disguise a response to the detention of Mrs. Zambada.
