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Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Secretary of National Defense in Mexico from 2012 to 2018, is accused of taking bribes in change for allowing a cartel to function in Mexico, federal prosecutors mentioned when he was arrested in October. He was charged in Brooklyn, New York City, with cash laundering and narcotics conspiracy.
US Attorney General William Barr introduced a take care of Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero beneath which US prosecutors will search to dismiss prices in opposition to Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who will be turned over to Mexican authorities who’ve opened their very own investigation into him.
A federal decide in New York’s Eastern District scheduled a listening to Wednesday, the place prosecutors are anticipated to ask the decide to dismiss the fees.
The October 15 arrest of Cienfuegos whereas on trip in Los Angeles was the end result of a yearslong effort by Drug Enforcement Administration investigators and US prosecutors who labored to uncover senior-level authorities officers who helped shield violent drug trafficking teams in Mexico.
Embarrassment and anger
But the arrest additionally embarrassed and angered many within the Mexican authorities, who complained that US authorities hadn’t offered sufficient notification, in accordance to US and Mexican officers briefed on the matter. High-level talks ensued in latest weeks to permit Mexican authorities to strive to prosecute the overall, a US official mentioned.
Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard mentioned on Tuesday night in a information convention that he had a dialog with Barr following Cienfuegos’ arrest, expressing Mexico’s “discontent” for “the lack of information shared in the investigation” and detention of Cienfuegos.
“We have an alliance against organized crime and it was not, for us, the government of Mexico, understandable that being allies we would not be notified,” Erbard mentioned.
Tensions between the international locations had grown within the month for the reason that arrest, prompting the Mexican authorities to weigh what motion it ought to absorb response, a Mexican authorities official informed CNN.
“We had already been looking at the security relationship already with the DEA and others saying, is this the right way to go? Is this working or not? (The arrest of Cienfuegos) did not help.”
The official mentioned he didn’t have direct data of any ultimatums Mexico may need made throughout negotiations, equivalent to limiting the DEA’s skill to work collectively with Mexican safety forces, however mentioned senior Mexican diplomats undoubtedly expressed their unhappiness with the US. “It’s unacceptable to treat an ally this way,” the supply mentioned.
The supply added that the choice to request prices be dropped in opposition to Cienfuegos so he may probably face prices in Mexico was seen as a significant step towards bettering bilateral relations that had threatened to proceed to bitter.
Mexican prosecutors had opened their very own investigation into Cienfuegos after his arrest within the US, the joint US-Mexico assertion mentioned. And “in the interest of demonstrating our united front against all forms of criminality” and “so that he may be investigated and, if appropriate, charged under Mexican law,” the US Department of Justice determined to search the dismissal of prices, the assertion mentioned.
Officials cracking down on cartels
The New York prosecutors who charged Cienfuegos have been in the identical workplace that efficiently prosecuted Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced in 2019 to life in jail plus 30 years. In July, the identical US, legal professional’s workplace introduced prices in opposition to Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security, Mexico’s high federal investigative company, for allegedly aiding the Sinaloa cartel’s drug trafficking operations.
Barr, who has long-established himself as a tricky regulation and order man throughout his present tenure, has additionally boasted internally about his work with Mexican authorities to achieve extradition of high drug trafficking suspects. The deal to return Cienfuegos with solely a promise by Mexican authorities to examine him has angered investigators and prosecutors who’ve spent years working to goal Mexican drug traffickers and the corrupt officers who protected them, in accordance to present and former officers briefed on the matter.
Last month, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has vowed to crack down on the cartels and corruption, known as Cienfuegos’s arrest, “a very regrettable fact.”
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