The former Mexican secretary of National Defense during the Enrique Peña Nieto administration,
General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, was detained at the Los Angeles International Airport
, reported the current Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard.
The arrest of the military Cienfuegos, who was in the post between 2012 and 2018, marks the highest-ranking arrest of a Mexican official in the United States, along with that of also former secretary Genaro García Luna, who was in charge of public security between 2006 and 2012.
So far
there is no official information on the cause of the arrest
, but a Drug and Narcotics Administration (DEA) official told our sister network NBC News that it was at the request of this agency.
The newspapers The New York Times and Washington Post assure that charges related to
drug trafficking
are attributed to Cienfuegos
.
Cienfuegos was transferred at night to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, according to reports from the newspaper Milenio.
The Mexican Armed Forces, which Cienfuegos commanded, are the main body in charge of the fight against drug trafficking.
During the Cienfuegos mandate, in 2016, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán was arrested
after two escape attempts.
"I have been informed by Ambassador Christopher Landau of the United States that the former Secretary of National Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, has been detained at the Los Angeles Airport, California," Ebrard tweeted this Thursday night.
[López Obrador promotes that a popular consultation on whether to prosecute former presidents]
Who is Salvador Cienfuegos?
Cienfuegos was involved in several scandals related to human rights violations
during the Peña Nieto government.
Human rights organizations accuse that cases of extrajudicial executions and massacres, such as
the massacre of 22 civilians in Tlatlaya in 2014
, happened because Cienfuegos gave orders to soldiers to "kill" criminals during military operations.
Emilio Lozoya accuses Peña Nieto of allocating millionaire bribes to his campaign
Aug. 12, 202000: 54
He has also been singled out for blocking investigations into the alleged involvement of the Army in the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa normalistas who disappeared in September 2014.
In April 2016, Cienfuegos publicly apologized for a video in which two soldiers and a federal policeman tortured a woman in the state of Guerrero.
[AMLO promised to reverse the militarization of the country. He ended up giving the National Guard more powers]
In recent years,
the United States authorities have taken action against former Mexican officials
who are suspected of having committed illegalities.
In December of last year, for example, the former Secretary of Public Safety Genaro García Luna was arrested in Texas, who is now facing trial for links to drug trafficking.
The criminal accusation against García Luna indicates that he collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel when his job was to fight organized crime groups like those.
He was minister between 2006 and 2012, during the administration of former President Felipe Calderón.
[Enrique Peña Nieto in the sights of Mexican justice for alleged acts of corruption. AMLO reacts]
With information from NBC News, Millennium, The New York Times, Washington Post.
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