Morena and the PAN accuse each other of having ties with El Mayo Zambada's lawyers

Morena and the PAN are engaged in an incipient struggle to disassociate themselves at all costs from any relationship with Juan Pablo Penilla Rodríguez and Sergio Ramírez Muñoz, lawyers for Ismael El Mayo Zambada. The controversy has reached the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who denies any relationship with the litigants . The arguments of the opposition party are based on some photos of the president with the lawyers, others with Morena legislators and on events of the former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador . From the other side, the ruling party maintains that a former PAN deputy, Teresa Castell, promoted in the past the delivery of a recognition to one of the lawyers. The aforementioned has quickly come out to deny this version. In times where the drug trafficker occupies national and foreign headlines, everyone seeks to disassociate themselves.

The exchange began on Friday and has continued until today, Monday. The speculation has had two origins. First, the letter that El Mayo Zambada, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel , sent to the Mexican Government, where he demands that the United States demand his repatriation, under the threat that if it does not do so, the relationship between both countries will suffer a “collapse.” Juan Manuel Delgado, partner of the RP Abogados law firm, has been the one who spread the letter from the Mexican boss. Second, the statements of the Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández, who in an interview has pointed out the alleged relationship of the law firm that defends Zambada with the ruling party and with the Mexican president.

“If you look at who the partners of RP de Abogados are, there are Sergio Ramírez, Juan Pablo Penilla and Juan Manuel Delgado himself,” said Hernández. Two of them have snapshots with Sheinbaum and other Morena legislators. This has been followed by one of the snapshots in which Sheinbaum is seen with Penilla Rodríguez. The tangle has become a little more tangled. The PAN released other statements about the alleged links of the president with Penilla Rodríguez. Jorge Triana, spokesman for the PAN, has published other photographs on his X account. In one of them, Sergio Arturo Ramírez Muñoz, general director of the office that advises El Mayo Zambada, is seen with Sheinbaum. The image has been accompanied by an alleged registration of the litigant as an active member of Morena since 2023. “And they still dare to deny it. They are a narco-government. And there is still more…” reads the message.

Sheinbaum has denied knowing Penilla Rodríguez. Regarding the photograph in which she is seen with him, she has suggested that it was taken during her campaign for the presidency. The president has insisted, in her morning press conference on Monday, that the movement she leads does not establish relations of complicity or collusion with anyone. “I do not know the person, there is a photograph there, but I do not even know where it is. During the campaign, photos are taken with many people. If there is an investigation by the Prosecutor's Office, let it investigate to the last consequences,” she said.

Morena has counterattacked. Sergio Gutiérrez Luna, president of the Chamber of Deputies, has come out to confront the snapshots in which he, Ricardo Monreal and Pedro Haces, coordinator and vice-coordinator of Morena in the legislative body, can be seen together with Penilla Rodríguez. The Morena member has maintained, with documents, that the former PAN deputy, María Teresa Castell, is responsible for the recognition of Ambassador of Peace that was awarded to the drug trafficker's lawyer. Castell has rejected the accusations. The PAN member has stated in a letter that her participation in the event has been limited to the request to occupy a space in the facilities of the lower house for the delivery of recognitions to a handful of lawyers and at the request of civil society organizations and not exclusively for the decoration of the lawyer. In her letter she adds that she, unlike the Morena members, was not present at the ceremony. “I urge you to make public the videos of the event in question, in order to fully prove who attended and who did not,” reads the letter addressed to Gutiérrez Luna.

The controversy has not ended there. Ana Lilia Rivera and Lucía Trasviña, Morena senators for Tlaxcala and Baja California, respectively, led the 2023 presentation of the Pro Humanitas award —promoted by a civil organization— to litigants, including Penilla Rodríguez. A second presentation of recognition to the lawyer took place in November 2024. The event was convened by the civil organization The One México and headed by Morena senator Juan Carlos Loera. Added to the plot is the documented participation of Penilla Rodríguez as an advisor to the Government of Tamaulipas in the past.