A cartel-connected Mexican governor is pointing the finger at Mexican journalists as responsible parties if he becomes a target of attacks by gunmen. The politician has been the topic of numerous news articles hinting that he may have played a role in setting up a trap where Los Chapitos captured infamous drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and turned him over to U.S. authorities.
During a news conference this week, Sinaloa’s governor, Ruben Rocha Moya, dropped the names of journalist Luis Chaparro and news personality Azucena Uresti. The governor claims they are behind an attempt to link him with Zambada’s capture so that his group will seek revenge. The comments come after Chaparro and Uresti reported that U.S. authorities did not have a record of Rocha Moya traveling to Los Angeles on the day of El Mayo’s capture, as he had previously claimed.
As Breitbart Texas reported, on July 25, Zambada traveled to a meeting with top politicians and his godson, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. Once there, Guzman Lopez captured him and flew to a private airfield near El Paso, Texas, where U.S. authorities were waiting. The capture sparked a fierce turf war that began in Sinaloa and spread to other parts of Mexico, bringing numerous murders and kidnappings.
In the days after the arrest, Rocha Moya was named in numerous news articles as having been one of the politicians at the meeting. The allegations gained so much traction that top Mexican officials denied his presence there. The politician claimed to have taken a personal trip on a private airplane to Los Angeles.
During this week’s conference, Rocha Moya showed the alleged flight plan for the trip. However, in Chaparro’s reports, the journalists quoted officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection who claimed that the politician’s name is not in the agency’s records as having entered the country on those days.
The international press freedom organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called out Rocha Moya’s accusations. As Breitbart Texas has reported, CPJ is one of the organizations that labeled Mexico as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
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