(NewsNation) — American law enforcement officials spent years looking into allegations that people close to Mexico’s president met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels but eventually decided not to open a formal investigation, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador vehemently denied the allegations during a press briefing Thursday, calling them “completely false.” He later added that “the U.S. government is going to have to address this.”
The previously unreported inquiry uncovered information pointing to potential links between cartel operatives and Mexican advisors and officials close to López Obrador.
“Records show that the investigators were told by an informant that one of Mr. López Obrador’s closest confidants met with Ismael Zambada García, a top leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, before his victory in the 2018 presidential election,” the New York Times reported.
Investigators also obtained information from another source suggesting that drug cartels had videos of the president’s sons picking up drug money, the Times said, citing records.
The New York Times story was based on unidentified U.S. officials familiar with the matter and records associated with the now-shelved inquiry. The media outlet noted that much of the information collected by U.S. officials came from informants whose accounts can be “difficult to corroborate” and “sometimes end up being incorrect.”
Ultimately, U.S. authorities did not find any direct connections between López Obrador himself and criminal organizations. The U.S. never opened a formal investigation into the Mexican president.
On Thursday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, “There is no investigation into President López Obrador.”
The New York Times investigation comes shortly after ProPublica, Deutsche Welle and InSight Crime published stories describing an earlier U.S. investigation into whether López Obrador’s campaign aides took money from drug traffickers.
López Obrador is in the final months of his presidency and has consistently faced criticism for not aggressively pursuing drug cartels like his predecessors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.