Breathe
By Yuriria Rodríguez Castro
Not since the Colombian drug traffickers were tried as "cartels" in order to make an exemplary trial in the United States during the 1990s under President Bil Clinton and his criminal policy better known as the kingpin law to identify the leaders and publicly block their illicit assets, has the U.S. government sought to prosecute a criminal organization. In this case, summary judgment is repeated by designating the Mexican cartels as terrorists.
Trump's first phase is to receive 29 drug traffickers to be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, with punitive measures that all Mexican governments would have openly condemned in adherence to human rights, but which were now part of a very stealthy "cooperation", although obedient to the demand of Donald Trump's government.
U.S. government scenarios
Trump to have 29 drug trafficking informants with Mexican governments
1. If the negotiation is that the Mexican government makes the arrests and the US government carries out the judicial processes, as soon as the results to stop fentanyl trafficking are not achieved, Trump will move on to the second stage: to carry out operations in Mexican territory as a result of the information obtained from the 29 and one who has already been exhaustively interrogated, Ismael Zambada. All are potential sources to demand the arrest of Mexican politicians involved in drug trafficking, for which President Sheimbaum has already offered the former opposition governor, Silvano Aureoles, as a distracting firecracker.
Trump decides who to send to death penalty
If Trump executes Rafael Caro Quintero with the death penalty instead of Ismael Zambada, he will not be responding to demands to stop the trafficking of fentanyl, as Zambada does represent the distribution of this deadly drug in his country, not Caro Quintero.
If Trump executes both Caro Quintero and Mayo Zambada, it would be a very convenient show of exemplary patriotism. Whether or not the others get the death penalty, they would be trophies of lesser media impact.
4. The middle ground of not returning Zambada to Mexico but sparing his life or dragging out the decision to send him to death row allows Trump to pressure the Mexican government longer than if he returns them.
5. If Trump returns Zambada to the Mexican government, it would not be a failure for him, as he can send Joaquín Guzmán Loera or any of his sons to the gallows, especially Ovidio Guzmán, who is linked to fentanyl trafficking.
Canadian government scenarios
Andrew Clark's delivery among the 29
Although the Mexican government could have handed over Canadian national Andrew Clark to Justin Trudeau's government, it preferred to give him to Trump as a package deal. Clark was arrested in October 2024 in Zapopan, territory of the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation, and instead of extraditing him to the Canadian government, the Mexican authorities handed him over to the United States, leaving Trudeau in a bind, as he will now be forced to decide whether to leave him in the US or demand his return to avoid the death penalty. Whatever he does will have a controversial result that in times of internal political crisis does not suit him.
2. Clark is the second in the order of high-level command of Canadian criminal organizations and the link with the CJNG, as former Olympic athlete Ryan Wedding, who is still at large and at just 43 years old, is the top executive leader of this Canadian criminal organization that links the mafias of the Wolfpack with Mexican drug trafficking. This makes the Canadian, handed over by Mexico to the U.S., the key piece in locating Wedding and winning the medal for his capture, in addition to obtaining the necessary information on the logistical infrastructure between Mexican cartels and Canadian criminal organizations in the trafficking of methamphetamines and fentanyl.
Mexican government scenarios
Aureoles is being prosecuted for embezzlement, not for drug ties
1. The investigation of Aureoles is more an attempt to take advantage of the crisis by demonstrating that measures are being taken against governors in order to satisfy the demands of the US government that point out the intolerable relationship between Mexican politicians and drug trafficking. However, there is a risk that the US does not value this simulation, since Aureoles is not being investigated for money laundering, but is being prosecuted for diversion of public resources, that is, for embezzlement, the same crime for which Rosario Robles and Elba Esther Gordillo were prosecuted and imprisoned, both released, since they had no verifiable links with drug trafficking.
The crime of diversion of resources is the opposite of money laundering, since embezzlement consists of using a public resource that has a destination for another purpose within the same government institution. It consists of licit resources that are corrupted and diverted to another public purpose, while laundering consists of bringing illicit assets into licit institutions or companies, in order to clean the illegal assets. Both laundering and embezzlement are criminal acts, but embezzlement does not imply an illicit relationship with drug trafficking, but an act of institutional corruption.
Risk extension: 29 drug traffickers willing to report
2. Trump's list to go after governors does not exist neither in the Treasury Department nor in the Department of Justice, the names are in the hands of the Intelligence offices and have been obtained from declarations of drug traffickers such as Ismael El Mayo Zambada, but the list will expand with the arrival of 29 informants willing to involve politicians of all parties, even more those of Morena, since it was this party who delivered them "wholesale", even from the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with the capture and extradition of several leaders of Sinaloa.
3. To avoid the death penalty, Ismael Zambada has already demanded repatriation in exchange for not giving any more compromising information. Therefore, if Claudia Sheinbaum's government handed over these 29 in exchange for Zambada, it runs the risk that these criminals will set the same conditions to avoid the maximum penalty, also offering to give information on links to Mexican politicians that affect their own party.
Delivery of the 29 was not to curb tariffs
4. If the Mexican government achieves the repatriation of Ismael El Mayo Zambada and the tariffs are applied as -at press time- Trump already confirmed they will be, the delivery of the 29 is in exchange for Zambada and a bet on failure, because if Ismael Zambada returns to Mexico, Sheinbaum's government will be questioned, but if he stays in the US and offers information that involves Morena's political campaigns with the Sinaloa Cartel, not only will he be questioned, but Trump would be happy to judge the politicians involved. It is a lose-lose scenario, where the Mexican government is betting on losing less.
5. The only big difference between Ismael Zambada and the other 29 is the type of information he has: that of campaign financing, since the others have a lot to say about their links with some political actors to carry out criminal operations, but that would only affect a sector of power, that of mayors and governors, while the information of the former leader of Sinaloa points more towards the presidential leadership.
More violence in Mexico
6. Given that only Mexican drug traffickers captured and imprisoned many years ago were transferred, the transfer was only made so that the US justice system would receive them with life imprisonment or death penalty, since in Mexican territory many of them continued operating from prison, beyond abandoning the comfort of "open bars" that exist in Mexican maximum security prisons, this transfer will not reduce terrorist violence in Mexico, it is even very possible that it will increase as a reaction to the lack of leaders who continued to operate from prison. Therefore, a rearrangement of leadership will begin as the authority they still maintained in solitary confinement will be annulled.
Risk of attack on the Mexican government
7. The obedient surrender recognized by the authorities in Mexico, puts at risk the government of Claudia Sheinbaum, the governors involved, her team and herself, because it is a historic shipment that delivers these criminals to only two exemplary punishments: the death penalty or life imprisonment. In the best case scenario for them, isolation awaits them in some truly maximum security prison like the one where some terrorists and Joaquín Guzmán Loera(El Chapo) himself are already being held: there in the rocky and inaccessible mountain of Colorado, where sunbathing outings are limited to looking at the sky, because the high walls prevent them from seeing any soothing landscape.
Sheinbaum and the betrayal of the link to Mexican cartels
8. Therefore, a direct attack against a member of the president's team or directed at her is highly probable, precisely because drug trafficking is historically linked to Mexican governments, a response to what criminal organizations interpret as a betrayal of that link is to be expected.
Consolidation of Mexican terrorism
9. The fight against terrorism begins when its existence is accepted: Trump did what Mexico should have done, pointing it out and recognizing it. What is expected with this is the radicalization of the so-called cartels with respect to the Mexican State.
