'The Radioactive May'

The ultimatum issued by El Mayo Zambada from his detention center in New York State, through the Mexican Consulate in that city, may be an act of bravado, or it may be a real threat that destabilizes relations between the two countries.

Does El Mayo have the capacity to provoke the announced, warned binational crisis?

Many think so. And the reason is simple: he knows a lot, he has a lot of information because he has served as the boss or sub-boss of drug trafficking for decades in the most powerful cartel in Mexico: the Sinaloa Cartel .

El Mayo may well have been involved in the cartel's executive operations for at least 50 years.

He knows who they bought, threatened, blackmailed, financed, and also with whom they negotiated and made deals. Mayo knows which politicians were on the cartel's confidential payroll.

But above all, he knows who financed the political-electoral campaigns that enabled more than one person to reach elected office. At the municipal level - there must be many - at the state level and, perhaps, even at the presidential level.

We are talking about very serious accusations—with hypothetical allegations—about the links of the major drug trafficker, collaborator and right-hand man of the famous Chapo Guzmán.

Have Mexican cartels, in this case the Sinaloa cartel, been actively involved in Mexican politics? Have they financed campaigns, inhibited elections, kidnapped electoral operators from one or more parties to benefit another?

If all this is true, El Mayo knows it, and it will have to be proven. His accusations and accusations will not be enough. He will have to present evidence; that would be desirable.

Let us remember that in the applauded trial against Genaro García Luna —by Morena, AMLO and all their followers— he was convicted and sentenced with the testimonies of a series of prisoners completely lacking moral authority. But that is how the trial took place and here the entire government celebrated.

Let's see if El Mayo dares to speak out and point out some figures from this administration or the previous one as possibly responsible for links to drug trafficking.

A situation of enormous political risk for Claudia Sheinbaum's government, because after cheering the imprisonment of García Luna under that method, it would be incomprehensible if they rejected it when other characters are accused.

It is important to point out what motivates the United States government, the Department of Justice and the DEA to carry out these arrests and summary trials.

It is not the ethics or the high moral standard of fighting organized crime or drug trafficking. Not even against fentanyl, which has been so lethal in the last two years, causing more than 100,000 deaths per year in the United States.

It's about information, control and power. If Washington has access to privileged information about the cartel's and its leader's ties for many years - all the time El Chapo has been in prison - with Mexican politicians, governments and officials, it is worth its weight in gold for the US Treasury, the Justice Department and, ultimately, the State Department and the White House.

This information gives superpower to threaten and control the Mexican government in demanding conditions.

There are two former Latin American presidents in US prisons for links to drug trafficking. One from Honduras and the other from Guatemala.

There are precedents of having proceeded in the past for these crimes.

So there must be people on this side of the border who are very nervous about what El Mayo might reveal or prove.

Last Friday's letter threatening "bilateral chaos" if he is not repatriated shows the tip of the iceberg of the wealth of information that El Mayo may possess.

And we could also add the links and connections that the cartels have on the other side of the border to distribute drugs throughout the United States, pouring billions of dollars into the American and international financial system.

Everything seems to indicate that when the death penalty option was put on the table, El Mayo sent the threat and demanded to be repatriated.

The lawyer even claimed that the Americans “were changing the terms of the negotiation.” Today it is said that he would be willing to plead guilty rather than “sing” and reveal everything he knows. Who is he protecting? What message did he receive in recent days from his lawyer?

This could be a real turning point in the Mexico-United States relationship. The information that is revealed in the following days will be fundamental to understanding the way in which each government will address the issue, use the information and negotiate based on El Mayo 's statements.