‘Angustiadísimo’: El Chapo Offered to Give Up Sinaloa Cartel Secrets to Save Sons Kidnapped by El Mencho’s CJNG in Puerto Vallarta, Ex-Security Chief Says
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán offered to hand Mexico’s government information on the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations if it would help rescue his sons, whom the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera kidnapped in Puerto Vallarta in August 2016. That is the account of Renato Sales Heredia, who was national security commissioner under President Enrique Peña Nieto, as reported by Infobae on Sept. 28, 2026. Sales told the story in an interview with Saskia Niño de Rivera on her podcast Penitencia.
“Angustiadísimo”: what the ex-commissioner says happened
According to Infobae, Sales said Guzmán, then jailed at the Altiplano prison and awaiting extradition to the United States, personally asked him to take a message to the interior minister and the president: his sons had been taken, and he was willing to give information in exchange for help. Asked how the capo reacted, Sales answered with one word: “Angustiadísimo” (“deeply anguished”).
Sales said he took the request to the security cabinet and to Peña Nieto. His position was that any information had to go through federal prosecutors under Mexico’s organized-crime law, with Guzmán’s identity protected. “If he gives information and we use it without legal backing, before long we’ll be the ones testifying up there in the United States,” he said. Sales said Guzmán never formally testified on the matter. In his view, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada stepped in to stop the conflict with El Mencho’s group before it became open war.
The Puerto Vallarta kidnapping
As Infobae recounts it, about 20 gunmen burst into the Leche restaurant on Aug. 15, 2016, during Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar’s birthday celebration. They took him, his brother Jesús Alfredo and four other people. Infobae says the brothers were freed on Aug. 19.
Infobae also cites earlier, separate accounts. Former Sinaloa Cartel member Dámaso López Serrano, “El Mini Lic,” told journalist Luis Chaparro that the goal was to kill the brothers. He said Guzmán sent El Mencho a threat against his jailed son, Rubén Oseguera González, “El Menchito”: “A como tú me entregues a mis hijos, yo te entrego al tuyo” (“As you hand me my sons, I’ll hand you yours”). A reconstruction by Milenio, which Infobae cites, said a deal also included $2 million and a drug shipment. None of these accounts has been tested in court.
Where they are now
Guzmán was extradited in January 2017 and convicted in Brooklyn in 2019, according to the DEA. The Justice Department announced in July 2026 that Zambada had been sentenced to life in prison. NBC News reported that El Mencho died in February 2026 after being wounded in an operation to capture him.
Sources
- Infobae México, “‘El Chapo’ Guzmán ofreció traicionar al Cártel de Sinaloa cuando sus hijos fueron secuestrados por ‘El Mencho’, revela excomisionado de Seguridad,” Anayeli Tapia Sandoval, Sept. 28, 2026.
- DEA, Guzmán conviction release, Feb. 12, 2019.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Zambada sentencing release, July 2026.
- NBC News, “Powerful cartel unleashes wave of violence across Mexico after its leader’s killing,” February 2026.
- Photos: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons; EFE, via Infobae.
Reported Sept. 28, 2026, from Infobae’s account of Renato Sales Heredia’s podcast interview. The Narco Blog has not heard the full interview or independently verified his account, and the statements attributed to Dámaso López Serrano and Milenio are earlier, unverified accounts cited by Infobae.