Documentary revisits El Vicentillo’s DEA meeting
Original reporting: El Financiero
What happened
El Financiero reports on a documentary account of Vicente Zambada Niebla’s meeting with DEA agents before his 2009 arrest and subsequent U.S. efforts to persuade El Mayo to surrender through calls with his imprisoned son.
Reporting and context
A Netflix documentary revisits Vicente Zambada Niebla’s meeting with U.S. agents before his 2009 arrest and later efforts to persuade his father, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, to surrender, according to El Financiero. The newspaper draws on the series La Caída del Mayo and interviews with its directors, Darren Foster and Miguel Fernández Flores.
An unidentified former Mexican intelligence agent interviewed in the documentary said an elite Mexican unit tracked Zambada Niebla, known as “El Vicentillo,” to a meeting with DEA agents at a Sheraton hotel in Mexico City. The unit later arrested him on March 18, 2009. El Financiero reported, citing an account published by La Jornada, that more than 60 agents surrounded the house on Lluvia Street and that he was detained without gunfire or resistance.
The former agent said Zambada Niebla insisted after his arrest that he had an immunity agreement with the DEA and should be released. That is presented as Zambada Niebla’s claim in the documentary’s account. Mexico extradited him to the United States in February 2010.
Former U.S. prosecutor Michael Ferrara told the filmmakers that authorities installed a special telephone system at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center so El Mayo could call his son when he felt safe. During one conversation, the son described his difficulties in prison and urged his father to surrender to U.S. authorities.
Fernández Flores told El Financiero that El Mayo ultimately refused. The documentary, released October 29, uses those conversations to explore the limits of that family relationship and the negotiations between U.S. authorities and senior trafficking figures.
Original reporting: El Financiero.