Mexico Ex-Military Chief Charged in U.S. With Aiding Cartel
Mexico Ex-Defense Minister Charged by U.S. in Narcotics Plot
(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s former defense minister was charged in the U.S. with participating in a wide-ranging heroin and cocaine smuggling plot and accused of using his position to help a notorious Mexican drug cartel in exchange for bribes.
General Salvador Cienfuegos, who led Mexico’s military under former President Enrique Pena Nieto, has become the highest-ranking army official to be charged with drug trafficking. His indictment, dating from August 2019, was unsealed Friday after Cienfuegos was detained at Los Angeles airport.
Known as “El Padrino,” or the godfather, Cienfuegos is accused of aiding the H-2 drug cartel by targeting its rivals for military action, introducing the group’s leaders to other corrupt Mexican officials and warning it of U.S. investigations, among other acts. His arrest raises questions about the deep ties between the government and drug cartels in a country where the army’s role has expanded under the current president.
Cienfuegos appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alexander F. MacKinnon in Los Angeles by video conference. He spoke through a Spanish interpreter.
Cienfuegos agreed to be held in a federal jail in Los Angeles until a detention hearing Tuesday. Defense attorney Duane Lyons said he will ask that his client be released on bail at that time.
U.S. prosecutors asked in a filing that Cienfuegos be detained without bail, arguing he poses a significant flight risk because three of the drug-trafficking charges he faces carry mandatory 10-year sentences. If Cienfuegos were to flee the U.S. after being granted bail it would be “extremely difficult” to apprehend him in Mexico, “if the H-2 Cartel and powerful former government officials shield him,” the U.S. said in a court filing.
Cienfuegos “prioritized his personal greed over his sworn duties as a public servant, and he assured the continued success and safety of one of Mexico’s most violent drug trafficking organizations,” prosecutor Michael Robotti said in a memo asking a judge to deny bail. “He has no respect for public authority or the rule of law.”
BlackBerry Messages
According to prosecutors, the U.S. intercepted thousands of BlackBerry Messenger communications that show Cienfuegos helped the H-2 Cartel in several ways including locating maritime transport for its drug shipments and even introduced senior leaders of the cartel to other Mexican government officials willing to help the group in exchange for bribes.
Cienfuegos also warned the cartel about ongoing U.S. law enforcement investigations into the group and its use of cooperating witnesses and informants, which ultimately resulted in the murder of a member of the cartel because the group’s senior leadership incorrectly believed the individual was helping American law enforcement, prosecutors said.
As a result, the cartel was able to expand its reach to Mazatlan, Mexico, and across the Mexican state of Sinaloa, according to the U.S.. The cartel was also able to operate without significant interference from Mexican military and was able to import thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the U.S., prosecutors said.
At the time of Cienfuegos’s involvement with the H-2 Cartel, the organization was headed by Juan Patron Sanchez, prosecutors said. Patron Sanchez died in 2017 in a gun battle with Mexican military. The H-2 Cartel is a successor to the Beltran Leyva Organization, which was once led by Hector Beltran Leyva and operated in the Mexican states Nayarit and Sinaloa.
“It’s a very sad situation that a former defense secretary is detained and accused of narco trafficking links,” Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during his morning press conference Friday. The armed forces “are pillars of the Mexican state.”
Cienfuegos rarely traveled to the U.S., prosecutors said. The last time he was in the country was March 2019, five months before he was indicted by the Brooklyn grand jury.
In a related case in September 2019, Edgar Veytia, the former Attorney General of Nayarit was sentenced to 20 years in U.S. prison after he pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to an international heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana manufacture and distribution conspiracy involving the H-2 cartel. The U.S. said Veytia also used his position as the top law enforcement officer in his region to assist and abet drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.
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