Deal Allegedly Gave Sinaloa Bosses Immunity in Exchange for Providing Info on Rival Drug Organizations

Posted by Bill Conroy
The Narcosphere

(...) Zambada Niebla claims, in the court pleadings, that he attended the meeting in March 2009 at the hotel in Mexico City as scheduled, with Loya present, and while there, even though he was then under indictment in the US, was told by US federal agents that he would not be arrested and that arrangements had been made "at the highest levels of the United States government" to assure his immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation in providing information on rival narco-trafficking groups.

However, Zambada Niebla contends he was double-crossed, despite the assurance of the US agents.

He alleges in his pleadings that government agents "were satisfied with the information he had provided to them" at the meeting at the Sheraton Hotel on March 17, 2009, and that "arrangements would be made to meet with him again."

"Mr. Zambada Niebla then left the meeting," the court pleadings assert. "Approximately five hours after the [hotel] meeting, Mr. Zambada-Niebla was arrested by Mexican authorities."

Fast, Furious and the House of Death

Zambada Niebla's pleadings also reference the controversial U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) weapons-trafficking interdiction program Fast and Furious - an operation, now the subject of Congressional hearings, that allegedly allowed some 2,000 guns to be smuggled across the US/Mexican border under ATF's watch. Zambada Niebla contends that Fast and Furious is yet another example of the US government's complicity in the carnage of the drug war.

From Zambada Niebla's pleadings:

    The United States government considered the arrangements with the Sinaloa Cartel an acceptable price to pay, because the principal objective was the destruction and dismantling of rival cartels by using the assistance of the Sinaloa Cartel - without regard for the fact that tons of illicit drugs continued to be smuggled into Chicago and other parts of the United States and consumption continued virtually unabated.

   Essentially, the theory of the United States government in waging its "war on drugs" has been and continues to be that the "end justifies the means" and that it is more important to receive information about rival drug cartels’ activities from the Sinaloa Cartel in return for being allowed to continue their criminal activities, including and not limited to their smuggling of tons of illegal narcotics into the United States. This is confirmed by recent disclosures by the Congressional Committee's investigation of the latest Department of Justice, DEA, FBI, and ATF's "war on drugs" operation known as "Fast & Furious."

As a result of Operation Fast and Furious, the pleadings assert, about "three thousand people" in Mexico were killed, "including law enforcement officers in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, headquarters of the Sinaloa Cartel."

Among those receiving weapons through the ATF operation, the pleadings continue, were DEA and FBI informants working for drug organizations, including the leadership of those groups.

"The evidence seems to indicate that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that tax payers' dollars in the form of informant payments, may have financed those engaging in such activities," the pleadings allege. "… It is clear that some of the weapons were deliberately allowed by the FBI and other government representatives to end up in the hands of the Sinaloa Cartel and that among the people killed by those weapons were law enforcement officers.

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