Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla

Zambada-Niebla is a high-ranking member of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel. Among 8 or 10 other cartels, Sinaloa is Mexico’s largest and it dominates most of the western half of the country. Its territory extends all the way up to the US border near El Paso, Texas. What he claims, and what is backed up in leaked emails from the private CIA-linked corporation Stratfor, is that the US federal government made an alliance with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to end the drug war violence.

According to numerous leaked Stratfor emails made available by WikiLeaks, Mexican and US officials secretly discuss the strategy with the spy corporation. The theory was that everything was fine when one cartel controlled the central corridor of drug caravans coming into the US. Now that other cartels like Sinaloa, Los Zetas and the Carrillo Fuentes Organization are fighting for the same territory, tens of thousands of people are dieing.

Instead of bringing all the cartels to justice and stopping the flow of drugs into America, US officials let it be known that they had decided the Sinaloa cartel had won the war against the Carrillo Fuentes Organization and that particular drug war on the US border was now over. The losing cartel could either fall in line and profit, or be destroyed.

To inflict most of the carnage, Sinaloa cartel soldiers would be given immunity from arrest and prosecution in their attacks on their CFO rivals. What’s left of Carrillo Fuentes would then be mopped up by US DEA agents and local authorities.

The Stratfor emails

As detailed and reprinted by Narco News, Stratfor communicated with a spy it had in the Mexican government from 2009 to 2011. In the emails, the spy is given the code name MX1. The Mexican official describes the new US-Mexican strategy, not in fighting the drug cartels, but joining them in a desperate attempt to stop the carnage.

MX1 explains to Stratfor how authorities will react when a rival drug cartel pushes into an established cartel’s territory and a drug war erupts (quoted from leaked email):

• group comes, government waits to see how dominant cartel responds.
• If dominant cartel fights them, government takes them down.
• If dominant cartel is allied, no problem
• If group comes in and start committing violence, they get taken down; first by the government letting the dominant cartel do their thing, then punishing both cartels.

Describing his take on the unexpected change in US tactics by aligning with a drug cartel, the Mexican official working secretly for Stratfor explains:

‘So, the MX strategy is not to negotiate. However, I think the US sent a signal that could be construed as follows:

“To the VCF and Sinaloa cartels: Thank you for providing our market with drugs over the years. We are now concerned about your perpetration of violence, and would like to see you stop that. In this regard, please know that Sinaloa is bigger and better than VCF. Also note that CDJ [Juarez] is very important to us, as is the whole border. In this light, please talk amongst yourselves and lets all get back to business. Again, we recognize that Sinaloa is bigger and better, so either VCF gets in line or we will mess you up.”

I don’t know what the US strategy is, but I can tell you that if the message was understood by Sinaloa and VCF as I described above, the Mexican government would not be opposed at all.

In sum, I have a gut feeling that the US agencies tried to send a signal telling the cartels to negotiate themselves. They unilaterally declared a winner [the Sinaloa Cartel], and this is unprecedented, and deserves analysis. If there was no strategy behind this, and it was simply a leaked report, then I will be interested to see how it plays out in the coming months.’

Fast and Furious connection

The notorious gun-running program carried out by the BATF and US Attorneys called Fast and Furious is a scandal in its own right. But a captured high-ranking Sinaloa cartel member is claiming that the BATF’s operation wasn’t a way to sell and then follow 2,500 guns into Mexico. Instead, he insists the US federal government was supplying arms to the cartel to use in its war against the VCF cartel.

As published in TheBlaze, Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla is the captured Sinaloa leader who faces trial in US courts later this year. Media outlets are reporting that when he takes the stand in his trial, he plans to reveal all the dirty little secrets the US government doesn’t want anyone to know, like its involvement in trafficking drugs into the US.

According to the above report, Zambada-Niebla will testify that, ‘The Sinaloa Cartel was allegedly permitted to traffic massive amounts of drugs across the U.S. border from 2004 to 2009 — during both Fast and Furious and Bush-era gunrunning operations — as long as the intel kept coming.’ Zambada-Niebla contends that US authorities helped Sinaloa in exchange for information on rival cartels so authorities could bring them down and stop the violence.

TheBlaze took their questions about the connection between Fast and Furious and the US government helping the Sinaloa drug cartel to the halls of Congress. They write:

‘One of the Congressmen, who also spoke to TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity because criminal proceedings are still ongoing, called the allegations “disturbing.” He said Congress will likely get involved once Zambada-Niebla’s trial has concluded if any compelling information surfaces. “Congress won’t get involved in really any criminal case until the trial is over and the smoke has cleared,” he added, “If the allegations prove to hold any truth, there will be some serious legal ramifications.”

If Zambada-Niebla’s testimony was the only condemning voice accusing US authorities of being involved with the Mexican drug trade, it would probably fall on deaf ears. But with the recent WikiLeaks emails from the spy corporation Stratfor describing basically the same active role, one lone Sinaloa cartel member could possibly end up exposing the biggest government scandal in recent memory.

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For more information, read any of the following articles:

DoJ Protected Fast and Furious Target twice

Democrats on losing side of Fast and Furious, Scandal Recap

Murdered Border Patrolmans Family wants Justice