Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman allegedly paid the former president of Mexico at least $6million in hush money, a former accountant from his cartel has claimed.
Jesus Zambada is expected to reveal this week during Guzman's Brooklyn trial that former President Enrique Peña Nieto accepted millions from the notorious drug lord. The former Sinaloa Cartel accountant said one of his activities was to 'corrupt authorities', and the country's very own president was no different.
Nieto has denied taking the bribes, according to the New York Post. Zambada, brother of the cartel's co-head Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who remains at large, has been on the witness stand for Guzman's federal trial.
On Thursday he revealed he doled out huge bribes to Mexican prosecutors, police, military, and even the International Criminal Police Organization to ensure smooth operations for the cartel. 'The bribes for officials in Mexico City were about $300,000 per month,' the 57-year-old said.
He said that Guzman once directed him to give $100,000, along with a hug, to General Gilberto Toledano, who was in charge of the state of Guerrero. 'I was going to import cocaine from Colombia through the state of Guerrero...and El Chapo told me "Go and meet General Toledano, he's my friend, and give him $100,000 from me,''' Zambada recalled.
Zambada also revealed how Guzman took great pleasure in the horrendous murder of one of his longtime rivals. According to Zambada, in 2005, Guzman relished in the details surrounding the 2002 killing of Ramon Arellano Felix in Mazatlan, Mexico.
The Tijuana Cartel leader had been a longtime rival, so when he was killed it was said that Guzman had asserted 'that if anything had ever given him pleasure it was to have killed Ramon Arellano.' 'Ramon had killed many of Chapo's friends,' Zambada said, according to the New York Post.
'He was very dangerous.' Zambada claimed that his older brother allegedly had informed him of the details surrounding the killing. Attempts on Arellano's life were said to have dated back to 1992. At the time, hitmen shot up a popular nightclub in Puerto Vallarta in an effort to kill him and his brother, Benjamin Arellano Felix.
Arellano was said to have been hit in the gang war shootout and it was reported that he died in his car. But according to Zambada, Guzman had the man surrounded by crooked cops and the man was shot while he tried to run to a hotel for safety.
'They had him stopped with the police, but he didn't stop, he tried to get away,' he added. 'They shot him, they put a bullet in his neck. He fell down dead.' It wasn't exactly clear if Arellano was killed by crooked cops or by a hitmen as a Spanish translator was used in the case. Zambada had also admitted to driving Guzman to a Mexico City safe house after his boss busted out of prison in 2001.
During that trip, they had a paid police escort. On Wednesday, Zambada had identified Guzman in the courtroom and told jurors he 'was one of the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico.' The witness described how the cartel made massive profits by smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States. Zambada - who is still in US custody - was the first of several cooperators expected to give jurors an inside look at a cartel with a legendary lust for drugs, cash, and violence.
The defense, which says Guzman is being framed, has described cooperating witnesses like Zambada as liars seeking to reduce their own sentences. Despite his diminutive stature and nickname that means 'Shorty' in Spanish, Guzman was once a larger-than-life kingpin both feared and admired in Mexico. The defense has sought to counter that reputation by portraying him as lesser figure in a drug gang.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors gave jurors a video tour of a sophisticated tunnel between Mexico and an Arizona warehouse that they said was used to speed drug deliveries to America. The warehouse was just two blocks from a US Customs office in the border city of Douglas.
Brought to the US almost 22 months ago, Guzman is accused of smuggling more than 155 tons of cocaine into the United States over 25 years and faces life in prison if found guilty. His lawyers argue he has been scapegoated by Mexico's 'corrupt' government and the US Drug Enforcement Agency, and that the cartel's true chief was Ismael Zambada.
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