A former Mexican Minister of Defense, Salvador Cienfuegos, has been arrested in the United States for an unknown reason, announced Thursday (October 15th) the head of the Mexican diplomacy Marcelo Ebrard.
"The former Secretary of National Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, was arrested at the airport in Los Angeles, California,"
Marcelo Ebrard tweeted.
He added that the reason for this arrest will be clarified
"in the coming hours"
by the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles.
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Salvador Cienfuegos had been Minister of Defense from 2012 to 2018 under President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
At the time, several members of the Mexican armed forces were accused by human rights organizations of being involved in disappearances, including those of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero (south-east). , in 2014.
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Another former Minister of Enrique Peña Nieto, Genaro Garcia Luna, who had held the Public Security portfolio, is currently incarcerated in New York.
He was arrested in December 2019 in Dallas, Texas on suspicion of being involved in trafficking at least 53 tonnes of cocaine destined for the United States.
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