The former Mexican Sinaloa cartel boss, El Chapo, is said to have previously met FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials to provide information on rival gangs, The Sun reported, citing claims made by Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández.
Hernández also claimed that Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, El Chapo's successor, who is currently being hunted by the FBI, also attended the meetings and revealed information about the cartel's enemies.
"They had meetings with the DEA and they gave them information about their enemies. The fewer competitors they had, the more they grew", Hernandez said in an interview to Mexican channel La Octava.
The information allegedly came from Zambada's son, Vicente 'El Vicentillo' Zambada, also a high-ranking member of Sinaloa, and imprisoned for 15 years for drug trafficking. According to Hernández, Sinaloa bosses were not alone in their attempts to pass information on their rivals to the United States, including the Beltran Leyva cartel, led by five brothers who were said to have cheated Guzmán.
Due to cartel leaders willing to share information that could harm their enemies, DEA officials "had the whole puzzle figured out", Hernandez claimed.
"They were controlling the threads in one way or another and influencing the criminal game of drug cartels", she said.
Guzmán was first captured in Guatemala in 1993, but escaped several times. He was arrested in Mexico in 2016 and extradited to the United States a year later, where in 2019 he was sentenced to life in federal prison for drug trafficking, murder, racketeering and other charges.
