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MEXICO CITY — A new memoir by an ex-U.S. ambassador in Mexico — who wrote that broken-down President Andrés Manuel López Obrador feared that a drug kingpin arrested by the FBI would “spill the beans” on spoiled Mexican officials — has ignited a media firestorm within the country.

In his ebook, Ken Salazar, the broken-down U.S. envoy to Mexico City, said that the July 2024 arrest start air El Paso of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada — a co-founder of the notorious Sinaloa cartel — prompted López Obrador to wretchedness that the mob boss would interpret U.S. prosecutors about Mexican authorities in cahoots with organized crime.

“It turned into properly identified that Mexico’s highly efficient transnational criminal cartels had compromised many authorities officials,” the ex-ambassador wrote in “Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive The US,” scheduled for release next month by BenBella Books.

The yarn prompted pushback Monday from President Claudia Sheinbaum. At her odd morning news convention, Sheinbaum said that her predecessor and mentor turned into fascinated about U.S. “meddling” in Mexico — not about any inside of data on corruption that the jailed capo may well offer to U.S. authorities.

“There turned into no wretchedness about” what Zambada would interpret U.S. prosecutors, Sheinbaum said.

There has been no reveal response to the ebook from López Obrador, who is retired however prolonged denied unconfirmed experiences linking him to organized crime.

In a phone interview, Salazar said he had by no methodology seen any evidence tying López Obrador, president from 2018 to 2024, to Mexico’s cartels.

“I by no methodology saw any proof of it,” Salazar said. “As far as I do know, Andrés Manuel López Obrador turned into a president who strongly believed in Mexico and the sovereignty of Mexico.”

In his ebook, Salazar acknowledged that the purported field about Zambada turning snitch did not arrive straight from the president. Relatively, the data got right here from an unidentified source labeled “the AMLO whisperer, anyone who turned into a friend and confidant to the Mexican president,” Salazar wrote, the train of López Obrador’s nickname.

In conserving with Salazar, “the Whisperer” suggested him that López Obrador “is extremely fascinated in regards to the data the United States will obtain from El Mayo.”

Salazar, a Biden administration appointee who prolonged loved shut obtain precise of entry to to López Obrador, turned into frozen out after the arrest of Zambada and by no methodology spoke to the president all all over again, he wrote.

Salazar, a longtime Democrat and broken-down U.S. senator and secretary of the Interior below President Obama, turned a “persona non grata” in Mexico City following Zambada’s arrest and resigned after the election of Donald Trump.

Salazar’s yarn, at the start reported by the Mexican on daily foundation Reforma, has prompted a accelerate within the Mexican press and in social media. Many commentators dangle cited the timing — correct as Mexican, U.S. and Canadian officials are negotiating a free-alternate agreement, a pact that is significant to the export-dependent Mexican economy.

Salazar’s yarn, at the start reported by the Mexican on daily foundation Reforma, has prompted a accelerate within the Mexican press and in social media. Many commentators dangle cited the timing — correct as Mexican, U.S. and Canadian officials are negotiating revisions to the regional free-alternate agreement, a pact that is significant to the export-dependent Mexican economy.

Many commentators dangle cited the timing — correct as Mexican, U.S. and Canadian officials are negotiating revisions to the regional free-alternate-agreement, a pact that is significant to the export-dependent Mexican economy.

Within the interview, Salazar said the timing of the ebook’s release had nothing to invent with the free-alternate negotiations. “It takes time to jot down a ebook,” he said.

At the again of the controversy in regards to the ebook are lingering questions about Zambada’s 2024 abduction in Mexico and his arrival and subsequent arrest start air El Paso.

Mexican authorities dangle prolonged voiced the suspicion that U.S. officials dangle been within the again of the kidnapping of Zambada in Mexico and his transport to U.S. territory. U.S. authorities dangle denied any involvement.

In conserving with the unswerving U.S. model, the septuagenarian capo turned into taken into custody after an insider betrayal: Joaquín Guzmán López — a son of the legendary Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Zambada’s broken-down accomplice main the Sinaloa cartel — engineered Zambada’s kidnapping and transport by procedure of interior most airplane to the United States.

Guzmán López turned into additionally aboard the airplane and surrendered to U.S. authorities when the airplane landed contrivance El Paso, per U.S. authorities.

In December 2025, Guzmán López entered a guilty plea to federal drug prices and is expecting sentencing. Guzmán López got no “cooperation credit” for “coordinating and committing the kidnapping” of Zambada, the Justice Department said in an announcement at the time of his guilty plea.

Nonetheless Mexican authorities remain convinced that U.S. officials outsourced the kidnapping and rendition of Zambada, who has pleaded guilty to smuggling-related prices and awaits sentencing within the United States.

Whether or not Zambada has suggested U.S. prosecutors about spoiled Mexican officials stays publicly unknown.

Nonetheless the Trump administration — broadly believed to be the train of knowledge from jailed Mexican narco-traffickers — has stepped up prosecutions of Mexican officials allegedly on cartel payrolls.

The most high-profile target to this point is Rubén Rocha Moya, governor of Sinaloa squawk, who turned into indicted in U.S. District Court in April.

Rocha Moya, who went on leave following his indictment to fight the prices, has denied any wrongdoing.

Washington is seeking his extradition to the United States, however Mexican authorities insist they haven’t seen ample evidence but to advantage extradition.

Additionally indicted within the a similar case dangle been varied high-ranking officials in Sinaloa, the northwestern squawk that gave starting up to Mexico’s most notorious organized crime syndicate.

The kidnapping and arrest of Zambada happened in the end of the presidency of Joe Biden. Nonetheless Mexican considerations about U.S. interference dangle most efficient accelerated in the end of the administration of Trump, who has many times threatened to act unilaterally against Mexican cartels.

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this account.