Mexican drug cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada said he was ambushed and kidnapped when he thought he was going to meet the governor of the northern state of Sinaloa and then taken against his will to the United States, according to a letter released Saturday by his lawyer.

In the two-page letter, Zambada said fellow drug addict Joaquín Guzmán López asked him to attend a July 25 meeting with local politicians, including Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, of the ruling Morena party.

But before any meeting took place, he was led into a room where he was knocked over, a hood was placed over his head, he was handcuffed, and then he was taken in a pickup truck to an airstrip where he was forced into a private plane that eventually took him and Guzmán López , one of the sons of jailed drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, to American soil, according to the letter.

Zambada’s comments were released a day after the US ambassador to Mexico confirmed that the drug lord was brought to the US against his will when he arrived in Texas in July on a plane with Guzmán López.

After Zambada’s comments, which raised questions about links between drug traffickers and some politicians in Sinaloa, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked reporters “to wait for more information” and to hear the governor’s version.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. When the arrests of Zambada and Guzmán López were announced, Rocha told local media that he was in Los Angeles that day.

In early August, Zambada, 76, made his second appearance in US federal court in Texas after being taken into US custody the week before.

Guzmán López had apparently been negotiating with US authorities for some time about possibly turning himself in. Guzmán López, 38, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges in federal court in Chicago.

But U.S. officials said they had almost no warning when Guzmán López’s plane landed at an airport near El Paso. Both men were arrested and remain in custody. They are charged in the United States with various drug crimes.

Ken Salazar, the US ambassador to Mexico, said the plane had taken off from Sinaloa – the Pacific coast state where the cartel is headquartered – and that it had not filed a flight plan. He emphasized that the pilot was not American, nor was the plane.

The implication is that Guzmán López intended to turn himself in and brought Zambada with him to obtain more favorable treatment, but his motives remain unclear.

Zambada was believed to be more involved in the cartel’s day-to-day operations than his better-known and flashier boss, “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019.

Zambada is charged in a number of cases in the United States, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as “the primary leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing massive amounts of narcotics into the United States.”