New York prosecutors accuse Salvador Cienfuegos of drug trafficking and money laundering

Former Minister of Defense of Mexico Salvador Cienfuegos, arrested Thursday in Los Angeles, was charged in a New York court with three drug trafficking offenses and one drug money laundering between 2015 and 2017, while serving in the cabinet, according to the Brooklyn prosecutor’s office.

In his indictment, the New York Eastern District Attorneys assure that Cienfuegos, who was secretary throughout the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), “conspired to produce and distribute” heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana in the United States between December 2015 and February 2017.

“The defendant abused his public office to help the cartel H-2, an extremely violent Mexican drug trafficking organization, to smuggle thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana into the United States, including New York City, “the arrest memorandum reads.

Blackberry messages intercepted

“In exchange for bribes, he allowed the H-2 cartel – a cartel that regularly commits acts of violence, including torture and murder – to operate with impunity in Mexico,” he says.

The prosecution indicated that the evidence against the former minister includes thousands of Blackberry messages between Cienfuegos and members of the cartel intercepted by the authorities.

Although the indictment of this 72-year-old retired general nicknamed The Godfather was filed by the district attorney for the eastern district of New York on August 14, 2019, it was only released this Friday, after his arrest.

The crimes attributed to Cienfuegos are punished in U.S with a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment.

The former minister must appear before a federal judge in Los Angeles at 3 p.m. Mexico City time. He would be transferred to New York “in the coming weeks,” said prosecutors, who asked that Cienfuegos not be released on bail because he presents a “flight risk.”

Narcogobierno

Cienfuegos was arrested on Thursday afternoon, when he was arriving with his family at the Los Angeles airport.

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Friday that the arrest of Cienfuegos for drug trafficking is a “regrettable” fact, and specified that it is not being investigated in Mexico.

“This is an unequivocal example of the decomposition of the regime, of how the public function, the governmental function in the country was degraded during the neoliberal period (…) One could speak of a narco-government and, without a doubt, a mafia government” said López Obrador.

He also warned that active members of the Army who have collaborated with Cienfuegos in the crimes “will be suspended, withdrawn, and if necessary, placed at the disposal of the competent authorities.”

The arrest of Cienfuegos takes place after the capture of the former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico Genaro Garcia Luna in the United States in December 2019, charged with conspiracy to traffic at least 53 tons of cocaine and currently incarcerated in New York, but the cases are apparently unrelated.

The Brooklyn prosecutor’s office, which presented the indictments in both cases, was also the one who charged Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, a former Sinaloa cartel chief found guilty of drug trafficking in February 2019 after a historic three-month trial, and sentenced to life in prison.

Has a lot of information

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the give And who spent more than a decade in Mexico, does not rule out that the capture of Cienfuegos could lead to accusations against other high officials and even former President Peña Nieto.

“Cienfuegos has a lot of information. Prosecutors and federal agencies (of the United States) always look for information in detainees like Cienfuegos that leads them to people of their level or above them,” Vigil told AFP by telephone.

He considered that this capture, added to that of García Luna, could undermine cooperation with the United States by virtue of the fact that “many members of the Mexican security forces will not want to collaborate, because there will be resentment, distrust.”

As of December 2006, the government of Felipe Calderon the role of the Mexican Army in the war on drugs increased. According to organizations such as Amnesty International, this unleashed a spiral of violence.

Since then, more than 296,000 murders have been registered in Mexico, the majority linked to organized crime, according to official figures.

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