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Torture, murder and violence: this is how the H-2 cartel operated under the protection of Cienfuegos

2020-10-17T19:40:07.224Z


Former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos is accused by US prosecutors of helping the so-called H-2 cartel to ship drugs to the United States. Here what is known about this group.


The Mexican H-2 cartel, a

split from the Beltrán Leyva criminal group,

was designated this Friday as the organization that received protection from Salvador Cienfuegos, Secretary of Defense of the Mexican Government of Enrique Peña Nieto between 2012 and 2018, who was arrested this Thursday in the United States accused of drug trafficking and money laundering.

According to the District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Cienfuegos, detained in Los Angeles, California, allegedly protected and aided the H-2 cartel in exchange for bribes.

[A general "godfather" of a cartel: these are the accusations against Salvador Cienfuegos for drug trafficking]

"The H-2 criminal group is a split, an offshoot of the Beltrán Leyva criminal group. It is a cartel that does not usually boast of its blows but has been taking hold in the last decade," he said in an interview with the news agency Efe the security expert Pedro Isnardo.

According to the US Attorney's Office, Cienfuegos guaranteed that no military operations were launched against this criminal group, while ordering the Mexican Armed Forces to attack rival organizations.

López Obrador announces a cleanup in the Defense after the arrest of Salvador Cienfuegos in the United States.

Oct. 17, 202002: 02

Isnardo assures that the arrest of Cienfuegos "makes it very clear not only what is the level of involvement that [drug trafficking] can reach in the Mexican Army, but also the risks of militarization" of national security.

If the Mexican military institutions have reached this level of corruption, he assures, it is worth asking "how are the governments of the states and the other public and national security agencies."

[After the arrest of Cienfuegos, Mexican President López Obrador defends the Army]

The criminal organization took the name of its leader

Juan Francisco Patron Sánchez

, nicknamed H-2, who was killed on February 10, 2017 during a Navy operation in the city of Tepic, Nayarit.

The H-2 was the leader of the Beltrán Leyva criminal group in Nayarit and Jalisco, as well as Sinaloa, in the Pacific, according to the Mexican Ministry of the Interior.

[López Obrador admits that it was he who ordered the release of the son of 'El Chapo' in the failed operation against the Sinaloa Cartel]

"During the period under investigation, it had several distribution cells in the United States, including in

Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Ohio, Minnesota, North Carolina and New York

" with which it moved drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, according to the documents. legal requirements of the US Attorney's Office.

"In Mexico, the

H-2 Cartel has trafficked hundreds of lethal firearms

and committed countless acts of

grisly violence, including torture and homicide,

to ward off challenges from rival groups, seize territory and silence those who would cooperate. with the authorities, ”says the prosecution.

[Who is Salvador Cienfuegos?

The history of military abuses with the general]

Patron Sánchez, Héctor Beltrán Leyva's successor, was actually just one piece in the once powerful Beltrán Leyva cartel, the organization prosecutors have always said had more sophisticated methods of spying on, co-opting and corrupting government officials. .

The Beltrán Leyva cartel, operated by that family, was once a prominent player in Mexico's narcotics trade, controlling the Sonora region on the border with the United States.

But Alfredo and Carlos, Héctor's brothers, were arrested, and another brother, Arturo, was killed by the Marines, not the Army, in 2009. After the deaths and arrests, the Beltrán Leyva criminal group split into various organizations.

[Enrique Peña Nieto in the sights of Mexican justice for alleged acts of corruption]

According to the Prosecutor's Office, the H-2 cartel was an organization "that habitually engaged in large-scale violence, including torture and murder and that operated with impunity in Mexico."

The H-2 style

Although some cartels, such as the Zetas or Jalisco, prefer to face the federal forces with bullets, the Beltrán Leyva cartels often chose to bribe them, although their members sometimes fought each other if they were cornered.

Héctor Beltrán Leyva, in fact, was caught without incident while dining apparently carefree at a restaurant in the resort town of San Miguel de Allende.

He passed away in 2018 of a heart attack while in prison.

Patron Sánchez was also living comfortably and apparently fearlessly in February 2017 in a luxurious home in the western Mexican city of Tepic, near the Pacific coast. 

Death of the H-2

In 2017, President Donald Trump had just arrived at the White House and, after questioning Mexico's ability to prevail over drug traffickers, offered the Mexican government to send forces against drug trafficking and insecurity in the neighboring country. 

Apparently Mexico's response was an operation in which marines - who depend on the Navy and not on the Cienfuegos Army - attacked the house where Patron Sánchez was hiding with multiple bullets from an electronically controlled multi-barrel machine gun installed in a helicopter.

Video footage showed how this weapon, which is only used in war zones and capable of firing thousands of rounds per minute, lit up the night sky over the city.

Patron Sánchez and seven accomplices opened fire on the Marines and barricaded themselves in the upper part of the house.

The Navy indicated that a grenade launcher and several rifles and pistols were found at the site.

The authorities indicated that the combat helicopter was called in to provide deterrent fire to suppress the shots from the house.

This was Operation Godfather

Operation Padrino, as the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) baptized the investigation against Salvador Cienfuegos, managed to bring down an alleged network of the retired general in the United States.

For the national security specialist Javier Oliva, the question is

"how the DEA intercepted thousands of messages

and if those interceptions were in Mexican territory."

This Friday, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, considered it "

a very regrettable fact

that a former defense secretary was arrested on charges of ties to drug trafficking."

For López Obrador, who assumed power in 2018 with the promise to clean up the corruption of previous governments, the arrest of Cienfuegos "is an unequivocal sign of the decomposition of the regime" that prevailed before his mandate.

In addition, he announced that all members of the Army who are "involved" in the events of which Cienfuegos is accused "

will be suspended, withdrawn

and, if necessary, placed at the disposal of the competent authorities."

The president advanced that the investigation is a matter "of the same New York court" that leads the trial of

Genaro García Luna

, who was Minister of Security of the Government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and was arrested for ties to drug trafficking.

It is also the court that sentenced Joaquín

El Chapo

 Guzmán, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel,

to life imprisonment

.

With information from AP and Efe.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2020-10-17

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