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.
So far
there is no confirmed information on the cause of the arrest
, but there are reports that it was at the request of the Drug and Narcotics Administration (DEA, in English) for possible acts of drug trafficking.
Cienfuegos was transferred at night to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, according to reports from the newspaper Milenio.
"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]
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 Milenio.
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