Revisiting the 2010 El Mayo interview by Proceso

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat from Proceso by Julio Scherer García

This interview took place in 2010, El Mayo is now 70 years old. Since his name is prominent  in the El Chapo case I thought a revisit may be due;

Ismael Zambada Garcia, aka "EL Mayo", one of the most wanted drug lords in the world, was interviewed at an undisclosed location, somewhere in the Sinaloa's hills, by the founder of the Mexican magazine, Proceso, Julio Scherer. 

This is an extract of the interview, and a picture in which the face of the drug lord can be seen for the very first time since the 70's. (He's the one with the baseball cap, below the R letter stands for Reporter, and the M, stands for Mayo)

R-I asked the Capo about Vicente "Vicentillo"

M- He is my son, the first of five, I call him "mijo". He is also my compadre.

R- Zambada continued with his personal account:

M- I got my wife, five women, 15 grandsons and one great-grand son. They, the six of them (the women), are here, at the ranch, daughters of the bush, just like me. the bush is my home, my family, my protection, my land, the water I drink. The land is always good, the sky, is not.

R- I don't understand.

M- sometimes the sky won't give us any rain.

R- There was a silence which I choose to broke the only possible way I could: Vicente?

M- I don't want to talk about him right now. I don't know if he is in Chicago or in New York. I know he was in Matamoros however.

R- I have to ask you...  talking about your son, do you live his extradition with such remorse that it tears into your fatherly love?

M- Today I'm not talking about "mijo". I cry for him.

R– Do we start recording?

(SILENCE).

R- I got a lot of questions, (I insisted, already drained).

M- Some other day, you got my word on that.

R- As I was observing him. He stands up over 6ft tall and he posses a fortress-like body, far from a barely pronounced gut. He wears a green tee-shirt buttoned up to the neck and his denim blue jeans keep the straight line of the well ironed clothes. He covers himself with a baseball cap and a mustache.

M- I have read all your books, and you don't lie (he tells me).

R- I stare at the Capo, his lips tightly close.

M- All of them lie, even Proceso lies. Your magazine is the first, informs more than the other magazines, but also lies. 

R- Can you site a case for me?

M- you talked about a wedding that didn't even existed.

R- Chapo's wedding?

M- You even gave up details of that wedding.

R- Sandra Avila talked about a party she went and in which also Chapo was present.

M- I knew about that party, but it was an exception in Chapo's life. If him or me were to exhibit ourselves that way, they would have had captured us already.

R- Have you ever felt the army too close to you.

M- Yes, four times, but Chapo has more.

R- How close?

M- Up in the sky, over my head. I escaped into the bush, of which I know his branches, the rivers, the stones, everything, if I keep myself quiet for a minute, or I'm careless, they could catch me, like they once did to Chapo. In order for us to meet today, I came from far away. And as soon as we're done, I will go away.

R- Are you afraid to be captured?

M- I feel panic of being behind bars.

R- If you get caught, would you end up with your life?

M- I don't know if i would have the arrests (balls) to kill myself. I want to think, yes, I would kill myself.

[R-I found out the Capo is careful with his words. He uses the term "arrests", and not the classic slang.  Zambada carries the bush in his body, but possesses his own confinement. His sons, his families, his grandsons, his son's and grandson's friends, all of them like to party. They frequently go to clubs and public places and the Capo can't come with them. He tells me that for him, there are no birthday parties, the celebrations, and the cakes for the kids, the happiness of the quinceaneras, the music, the dancing]

R- Is there any moment for tranquility in you?

M- I'm always afraid

R- Always?

M- Always

R- Will you finally get arrested?

M- Any time now, or may be never.

[R- Zambada is 60 years old and he got started in the drug trafficking business at 16. 44 years had passed which it gives him a great advantage on his today's prosecutors. He knows how to hide away, he knows how to escape and he is loved among the men and women where half of him lives, and half of him dies]

[R- There hasn't appeared any traitor yet, he suddenly expresses to himself]

R- How did you get started into the narco traffic business? His answer makes me smile.

M- Just because.

R- Just because?

R- Just because? I ask again.

M- Just because, (he answers again).

[R- There is no way in to that conversation and I keep myself to my own ideas: The narco as an irresistible and pitiless magnet that follows the money, the power, the yachts, the airplanes, the women, own and of others with the big houses and buildings, the jewels as colorful marbles to play with, the brutal impulse that leads to the summit. In the capacity of the narcotraffic exists, terrified without any horizon. The capacity of crushing.

Zambada doesn't ignore the prosecution the government has unleashed to capture him. That's their right and duty. However, he despises the army's barbaric actions. The soldiers, he says, brake doors and windows, they penetrate into the intimacy of the homes, they plant and spread terror. In this unleashed war they find immediate response to their actions. The result is the number of victims that grow. The capos are their targets, even though they are the unique figures of past times].

R- And what are they? I ask.

[R- Zambada responds with a fantastic example]

M- Let's say one day I decide to gave myself up to the government so they can execute me by fire squad. My case should be an example, a lesson to everybody. They execute me and euphoria explodes, but while days pass by, we would find out that nothing has changed.

R- Nothing after the fall of the Capo?

M- The problem with the narco, it wraps millions of people up. How to dominate them? and about the captured, dead and extradited Capos, their replacements are out there already.

[R- To Zambada's judgment, the government came to late to this war and there is nobody who can solve in days, the problems generated in years. With the government, infiltrated from the bottom up, time did it's "job" within the heart of the system and the corruption grew it's roots in the country. To he president, his collaborators cheat on him. They are liars and they inform him about advances that there are not true in this lost war]

R- Why is it lost?

M- The narco is within the society, rooted like the corruption

R– And what do you do now?

M– I work in agriculture and livestock farming, but if I can do a "business" in the united states, I do it.

R- I was pretending to dig in about the capo's fortune and I choose to use the Forbes magazine to get this topic into our conversation, I stared to his yes, faking to be anxious, "did you know that Forbes magazine includes Chapo among the biggest millionaires in the world?"

M- That's foolish.

[R- I had on my lips the following question, now superfluous, but I couldn't contain it anymore]

R- Could you figure in the Forbes list?

M- I already told you, that's foolish.

R– Is very well known your friendship with El Chapo Guzman and it couldn't bring any attention the fact that you could had been waiting for him outside of the Puente Grande prison the day he escaped. Could you tell me in which way did you lived that particular story?

M– "El Chapo" Guzmán and I are friends and compadres and we call each other on the phone frequently. But that story never existed. It's another lie they are trying to pin on me. Like the invention about me planning a hit on the President. I would have never thought of that.

R– Zulema Hernandez, Chapo's mistress, told me about the corruption prevailing in Puente Grande and about the way that corruption made it easier for Chapo to escape. Do you have any knowledge about what went down that day and how things were developing?

M– I know that there was no bloodshed, only one dead. I don't know anything else.

R- With an unexpected question, Zambada surprises me:

M- Are you interested in Chapo?

R- Yes, of course.

M– Would you like to see him?.

R- I came to see you.

M- Would you like to see him?.

R- Of course.

M- I'm going to call him, may be you could see him.

[R- Our conversation comes to an end. Zambada, standing up, walks under the sun's plenitude and again, he surprises me]

M-How about a picture?

[R- I felt an absolutely unexplained heat inside of me. The picture was the proof the authenticity of the encounter with the capo.  Zambada called one of his bodyguards and he asked him for his hat, he put it on. It was white of fine quality]

M- How do you like it?

R- That hat it's so bright, it takes the personality off of you.

M- What about the cap?

R- I think so.

R- The bodyguard aimed with the camera, and shoots.......