El Chapo’s Son Abducted Fellow Cartel Leader to the U.S., Officials Now Say

In the hours after the arrest of Ismael Zambada García, the last remaining godfather of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, U.S. officials gave their early understanding of the mystery at the center of it all: How did a fugitive who had evaded capture for decades end up being delivered straight into their hands?

Mr. Zambada García, the officials said, had been lured by a son of his former partner in crime, the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, onto a private plane that flew him without his permission over the border.

But after a fuller vetting of the account of El Chapo’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, with people who had knowledge of it, American officials have since come away with a different and more dramatic version of what took place in Mexico.

Mr. Zambada García, one of his country’s most wanted men, had come down from a hide-out in the mountains last week and was ambushed in the Mexican city of Culiacán at what he thought would be a friendly meeting with Mr. Guzmán López, according to three federal law enforcement officials who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive details of the case. Mr. Guzmán López then forcibly flew Mr. Zambada García in a Beechcraft King Air turboprop across the border, where he was apprehended by U.S. federal agents, the officials said.

That version of events echoed one that was recently offered by Mr. Zambada García’s lawyer, who told The New York Times and other news outlets that his client had not been tricked into boarding the plane, but in fact had been abducted. Mr. Guzmán López, the lawyer said, waylaid Mr. Zambada García with a group of henchmen who handcuffed him, stuck a bag over his head and muscled him into a car and then on to the plane, where he remained bound throughout the flight.

“My client neither surrendered nor negotiated any terms with the U.S. government,” the lawyer, Frank Perez, said in a statement released to reporters. “Joaquín Guzmán López forcibly kidnapped my client.”