What is the crime of treason and what does it have to do with ‘El Mayo’ Zambada?

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has included the crime of “treason” in its investigations into the arrest of the historic leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Amid the tangle of versions about what happened more than two weeks ago when the drug lord was arrested on U.S. soil along with Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and against the backdrop of an escalation of tension in the bilateral relationship between Mexico and Washington, the war-like crime that the prosecutor’s office has put on the table has attracted attention. The offense of treason has existed since the beginning of many laws around the world, but in Mexico it was recently modified in a context similar to the one surrounding the capture of El Mayo.

What is treason in Mexico?

The main definition of treason is by a person performing “acts against the independence, sovereignty or integrity of the Mexican Nation with the purpose of subjecting it to a foreign person, group or government,” and those instances when “a person is illegally deprived of his or her liberty in the national territory, to deliver him or her to the authorities of another country or to transfer him or her out of Mexico for such purpose.”

This last cause was added relatively recently to the Mexican Federal Criminal Code, in its article 123. Twenty years ago, in April 1990, doctor Humberto Álvarez Machaín was kidnapped in Guadalajara and transferred to El Paso, Texas, to be tried for his alleged involvement in the murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. According to the agency, Álvarez Machaín allegedly collaborated with the Guadalajara Cartel to administer drugs to keep Camarena alive during his torture. However, in 1992, he was declared innocent and released after Judge Edward Rafeedie ruled that there was not enough evidence against him.

After that event, the Mexican government incorporated the crime of treason into its criminal code to act against anyone who kidnapped someone to deliver them to another country. Currently, there are at least 15 causes for which a person can be accused of treason. In Mexico, being sentenced for such a crime precludes the possibility a pardon being issued by the government. Sentences can range from five to 40 years and a fine of up to 50,000 Mexican pesos ($2,633).

‘El Mayo’ Zambada and kidnapping claims

On the morning of August 12, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in his morning press conference that there is an attempt underway to weaken his government. He made this assertion in response to the publication of a letter by El Mayo in which he claims that on the day of his arrest he was ambushed and kidnapped after arriving at a location where he was supposed to meet with Joaquín Guzmán López, Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, and the former rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Héctor Melesio Cuén, whose murder was announced shortly after the capo’s arrest.

A day after El Mayo’s lawyer released the letter to the media, the Attorney General’s Office released a statement in which it said it had requested an investigation into the murder of Cuén “as a matter of urgency.” It also requested information from the governor about his alleged meeting with the Sinaloa Cartel kingpin as El Mayo claimed in his communiqué that Cuén was killed after his kidnapping in the same place where the meeting was scheduled to be held, Huertos del Pedregal, on the outskirts of Culiacán, contrary to the official version that indicates that the murder took place in a gas station.

El Mayo has stated that there was no negotiation for his voluntary surrender and that he was kidnapped and transferred to the United States without his consent. In his account, he stated: “On July 25, I went to the ranch and event center called Huertos del Pedregal, just outside Culiacán, where the meeting was to be held. The meeting was scheduled for 11 a.m. and I arrived a little early.” He added that after greeting Héctor Cuén, whom he referred to as a longtime friend, he saw Guzmán López. “I have known him since he was a child and he asked to me to follow him. Trusting the nature of the meeting and the people involved, I followed him without hesitation. I was directed to another room that was dark. As soon as I set foot in that room, I was ambushed. A group of men assaulted me, threw me to the ground and put a dark-colored hood over my head. They attacked and handcuffed me, and forced me into a van. Throughout this ordeal, I was subjected to physical abuse, which has resulted in severe injuries to my back, knee and wrists.”

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