kyiv, Ukraine.- Sergio Villarreal “El Grande”, who was one of the operators of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, participated in the capture of Jesús Zambada García, alias “El Rey Zambada”, he affirmed this Tuesday in a Brooklyn, New York court, where the trial against Genaro García Luna, who served as Secretary of Public Security in the Administration of Felipe Calderón, is carried out.
According to the former drug trafficker, in the operation in which “El Rey Zambada” was captured, he participated along with other hitmen disguised as agents of the then Sub-Prosecutor’s Office for Specialized Investigation in Organized Crime (SIEDO).
“El Grande” assured that the bosses were the ones who cornered the drug trafficker and later the Mexico City Police arrived to help them.
Before they handed him over to the authorities, they photographed “El Rey Zambada” for fear that they would “exchange” him.
“In Mexico anything can happen, corruption is very large, and detainees are changed in the operations,” he said.
Regarding García Luna, el Grande testified that the former official provided the Sinaloa Cartel with surveillance equipment of “an Israeli type” in Mexico City.
“There were call inhibitors, recorders, wiretapping equipment. They were very advanced. Arturo liked to renew this equipment,” he said.
El Grande testified that García Luna leaked information about capture operations to the cartel, including a planned raid on La Barbie’s wedding. “The party was held but no one went, not even La Barbie. The government searched but found nothing,” he said.
The ex-capo said that Arturo Beltrán Leyva kidnapped García Luna in 2006, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, to demonstrate that “nothing is impossible.”
