What do the reports tell us about López Obrador and drug trafficking?

In the novel

Goldfinger

, the villain of that name tells James Bond: “Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”

This phrase explains very well why there are minds absorbed by conspiracies, like that of the writer Ian Fleming or that of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, except that one is for harmless literary enjoyment and the other is to govern a country.

The publication of not one, not two, but now three reports on alleged links between López Obrador's campaigns and drug trafficking cartels surely convinces the president of the phrase once said to Agent 007. And, judging by his reaction, it fits him. perfectly.

The sequence of reports began less than a month ago with three simultaneous texts on two American portals (ProPublica and InsightCrime) and the German radio and television agency DW, which reported on an investigation by the United States Anti-Drug Agency (DEA) into alleged payments made by the Sinaloa Cartel to López Obrador's first presidential campaign in 2006.

He continued with an interview with Celso Ortega, leader of the Los Ardillos gang in Guerrero, but previously an operator for Los Zetas in Michoacán, who said that, also in 2006, that cartel gave money to the current president.

And finally, last Thursday the New York Times published details of another DEA investigation, but this more recent one, into contacts between the López Obrador campaign in 2018 with the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas.

The president's reaction went viral when he revealed the cell phone of one of the co-authors of the Times report and, confronted with a question about the violation of her personal data, declared that his "moral authority" was above the law.

But the president got his answer wrong because the problem is not that journalists have published investigations, but rather why the United States Government was investigating him.

The first and third reports have to do with DEA ​​investigations into the possible influence of drug trafficking in López Obrador's campaigns.

These investigations mean that there are at least suspicions, but the president attacks the messenger without considering the core of the matter, that the United States Government is sending him a message.

The reports are not the product of exhaustive investigations by reporters but rather of leaks from files that, although they were considered closed, at some point sparked investigations.

Several voices have criticized the quality of the reports, although it must also be recognized that Mexican journalism has often wallowed in leaks from Mexican authorities that are not passed through any sieve.

The question is: why is the DEA leaking these files?

The same reports admit that the investigations were closed not due to lack of elements, but to avoid political problems for the United States Government, first for attacking the main opposition politician and then against the President of the Republic.

Another question is: why in the final stretch of the Administration?

The discontent of the United States Government with López Obrador's anti-drug policy, the restrictions on DEA agents in Mexico, the passivity in the face of the expansion of the cartels and his slogan of “hugs, not bullets.”

When Joe Biden's Administration is under electoral fire for the growing problem of fentanyl trafficking, pointing the finger south of the border is convenient.

If the neighbors have the impression that López Obrador has been negligent in the fight against the cartels, their parting gift is to paint him as an accomplice to the criminals.

The problem for López Obrador is that the investigations have bases.

Have drug trafficking cartels spread in his government?

Yes. Do criminal groups control more and more territory?

Also.

Has the Government preferred that others take charge of the problem?

This seems to be the case with the consent for the Catholic bishops of Guerrero to mediate a truce between cartels.

More reasons: is it credible that drug traffickers have bribed political campaigns?

These warnings have been made since the 1980s. Is it coherent that a campaign has received money from competing cartels, such as Sinaloa and Los Zetas?

The contradiction is only apparent, cartels are businesses that seek to protect all their fronts.

There are elements that support even what has been published, such as the fact that a businessman, PRD candidate for senator and close to López Obrador's campaign in 2006, had links with the Sinaloa Cartel and was disappeared months after that election. .

There are even still reasons that make drug collusion in the party in power credible, when the former governor of Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernández, accused in the United States of money laundering, seeks to be a candidate for the Senate for the Green Party, allied to Morena.

There are also elements to doubt, such as the fact that none of the leaders of Los Zetas currently imprisoned have been released in this six-year term, despite the fact that the New York Times report indicates that López Obrador's campaign would have received four million in 2018. of dollars to free a founder of this cartel.

But all these reports paint a complicated scenario for President López Obrador and the end of his six-year term: the loss of credibility, the erosion of his honest discourse, and the violence that is already tarnishing the June elections.

But López Obrador no longer has time to repair this.

The six-year term has already run out.

And if Fleming's phrase is not enough for you, there is another popular wisdom that comes in handy to play the victim: “Once is a joke, twice is funny, but the third time is a joke.”

Javier Garza Ramos

is a journalist in Torreón, Coahuila, director of Horizonte Lagunero.

Subscribe here

to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and receive all the key information on current events in this country

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_