Transcript (en)

In late July 2024, El Chapo's son Joaquin Guzman Lopez got off a plane in the southwestern U.S. after a short mystery flight from Mexico. Chapo's kin was quickly brought to Chicago, where he has since cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid a life sentence, and he's now cooperating with federal law enforcement. How this plane came to bring Guzman Lopez and Sinaloa cartel founder Mayo Zambada to justice in America has never been explained. And now Mexican leaders say the U.S. story is riddled with lies. When this turboprop landed at a rural airfield in New Mexico almost two years ago, U.S. federal agents were waiting. Two of the most powerful cartel kingpins walking the earth walked off the plane. 76-year-old Mayo Zambada, who co-founded the ruthless Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo, and El Chapo's son, Joaquin, who was helping to run cartel operations while his father was in a U.S. prison. Together, they oversaw a multibillion-dollar business that supplied 80 percent of Chicago's street drugs the past three decades, according to U.S. investigators. The plane that mysteriously delivered them to justice has a new home, this New Mexico Aviation Museum, replete with the drug traffickers' chip bags and pop cans consumed on the cross-border flight. JOHN YANG, This man says the plane belongs to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Conal Whetton runs the FBI field office in nearby El Paso, Texas, and says the bureau gave this aircraft to the museum not to pay homage to drug lords but as the token of a war on drugs win CONAL WHETTON FBI Director Federal Bureau of Investigation The focus here is that they were brought to the United States and they are facing their charges Mexico president and top justice officials there are questioning whether the plane symbolizes an illegal U.S. government operation to get the cartel leaders into custody, violating extradition treaties. They've accused former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar of lying about it, to which Salazar repeats in a new social media post, not our plane, not our pilot, and not our operation. The truth is the truth. His new book later this month will say Mexican officials were concerned that cartel leaders could blow the whistle on corruption. Former DEA Chicago Division official Mike Gannon says it's obvious federal law enforcement had some knowledge of the plane ride, and he says Mexico should be applauding U.S. counter-cartel efforts, not calling them into question. Two of the most powerful people in the drug trafficking world, and they were charged. They got to the United States, and they're being held accountable. At the end of the day, I don't see anything wrong with that. They should be questioning why they weren't able to apprehend him for all these years. El Chapo's son has pleaded guilty in Chicago and awaits sentencing. El Mayo has also pleaded guilty. He will be sentenced a week from Monday in Brooklyn, New York. With both men giving up court trials, there will be no public display of evidence. That means we are unlikely to ever hear answers under oath about how they were flown into the U.S., leaving the mysterious flight from Mexico up to Hollywood scriptwriters, who undoubtedly would have a field day with this story. Back to you.