American regulation enforcement officers spent years wanting into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, met with and took tens of millions of {dollars} from drug cartels after he took workplace, in response to U.S. information and three individuals conversant in 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 america 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 in opposition to the chief of one among America’s prime allies, mentioned the three individuals conversant in the case, who weren’t approved to talk publicly.
Mr. López Obrador known 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 approach” have an effect on Mexico’s relationship with america, however mentioned he anticipated a response from the U.S. authorities.
“Does this diminish the belief the Mexican authorities has in america?” Mr. López Obrador mentioned at a daily 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 current efforts by the U.S. officers recognized doable ties between the cartels and Mr. López Obrador’s associates, they didn’t discover any direct connections between the president himself and legal organizations.
American officers declined to remark.
A lot of the knowledge collected by U.S. officers got here from informants whose accounts could be troublesome to corroborate and generally find yourself being incorrect. The investigators obtained the knowledge whereas wanting 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 prime chief of the Sinaloa drug cartel, earlier than his victory within the 2018 presidential election.
A unique 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 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 individuals they believed to be cartel operatives to intermediaries for Mr. López Obrador, two of the individuals conversant in the inquiry mentioned.
At the least a type 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 best often called El Chapo and is now serving a life sentence in an American federal prison.
Greater than a decade in the past, a separate investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration unearthed allegations that traffickers had donated tens of millions 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 america, pursuing legal costs in opposition to prime overseas officers is a uncommon and sophisticated endeavor. Constructing a authorized case in opposition to Mr. López Obrador can be significantly difficult. The final time america filed legal costs in opposition to a prime Mexican official, it finally dropped them after his arrest precipitated 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 turn out to be one of the 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 prime American buying and selling accomplice and the only most necessary collaborator in U.S. efforts to sluggish illicit medicine like fentanyl from crossing the southern border.
U.S. regulation enforcement companies have jurisdiction to analyze and produce costs in opposition to officers of different nations if they’ll present a connection to narcotics transferring throughout the border into america.
Whereas it’s unusual for American brokers to pursue prime overseas 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 last year against Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public safety secretary, persuading a jury that he had taken tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes from violent cartels he was meant to be pursuing.
Whereas efforts to scrutinize Mr. López Obrador’s allies are now not lively, the revelation that U.S. regulation enforcement officers have been quietly analyzing corruption allegations in opposition to them might itself be damaging.
Final month’s media reviews, including one by ProPublica, a couple of 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, during which his protégé, the previous Mexico Metropolis mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is main the race to exchange him. He prompt the reviews might complicate talks on migration and fentanyl with the U.S. authorities, and mentioned he thought-about 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 concerning the combat in opposition to medicine in the event that they, or one among their establishments, is leaking data and harming me?” Mr. López Obrador mentioned at a daily information convention days after the tales printed.
After President Biden known as Mr. López Obrador, calming tensions, the Mexican overseas minister mentioned that the U.S. homeland safety adviser instructed Mexico “that this can be a closed situation for them.”
The Biden administration has dealt with Mr. López Obrador with nice care, avoiding public criticism in favor of repeatedly dispatching prime officers to Mexico Metropolis to fulfill with him and press for sustained migration enforcement in non-public.
The choice to let the current inquiry go dormant, the individuals conversant in it mentioned, was precipitated 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 Common Cienfuegos of utilizing the powers of his workplace to assist a violent legal group known as the H-2 cartel conduct its drug trafficking operations.
His arrest on the Los Angeles airport provoked a furor throughout the Mexican authorities, significantly among the many leaders of the nation’s armed forces, which have assumed better 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 legal exercise however have been forged as inconclusive.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, which already had a checkered historical past as protagonists in a drug warfare 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 Common Cienfuegos again to Mexico.
The episode not solely broken longtime safety preparations between the 2 nations, but in addition 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 comparable efforts in opposition to different high-ranking Mexican officers.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting.