General Cienfuegos pleads not guilty in New York

Cienfuegos, in his years as Secretary of Defense in Mexico Guillermo Perea

Salvador Cienfuegos has pleaded not guilty this Thursday to the charges of drug trafficking and money laundering that the United States Attorney's Office imputes to him.

In an eventful remote hearing, the former Mexican defense secretary, held in a New York prison, has heard the charges against him, not without difficulties due to audio problems.

In the first part of the hearing, which in total lasted just over half an hour, the general said that he was not listening well.

Judge Carol Amon suspended the session, shortly after, because the echo took over the telephone line, full of journalists connected remotely.

Solved the technological problem, the hearing has resumed minutes later.

Everything has been very fast.

Cienfuegos has heard the charges, the judge has asked him if he understood them, he has said yes and has pleaded not guilty.

The next hearing will be on November 18, at 9 in the morning, Mexico City time.

Arrested in Los Angeles on October 16, Cienfuegos faces three charges for drug trafficking and one for money laundering.

In a letter to Judge Amon dated the day of his arrest, the district attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York notes that the general "abused his position to aid the" H-2 cartel, "a spin-off of the criminal network of the Beltrán Leyva, "to traffic thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana to the United States."

In the absence of knowing the details of the evidence against him, the prosecution explained in October that Cienfuegos helped the H-2 group at least between December 2015 and February 2017. “The defendant assured himself, in exchange for bribes, of that military operations were not carried out against this cartel, began operations against rival drug trafficking organizations, located boats for drug shipments, helped the cartel expand to Mazatlán and the rest of Sinaloa, introduced members of the criminal network with officials from the Mexican government willing to collaborate and alerted to the investigations that the United States agencies were carrying out on the H-2 network, ”reads the letter addressed to Judge Amon.

Prosecutors say there are thousands of cell phone messages that support the above.

In the document, the investigators also point out that they have intercepted communications, in which the general speaks with a member of the criminal network about his "historical help" to another criminal organization.

With a career of more than 50 years in the Army, it is difficult to know what other organization Cienfuegos may have referred to.

The arrest of the general, head of the Army during the presidency of the PRI Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), fell like a bomb in Mexico.

Mainly due to the implications derived from the fact that an official of his level had allegedly been related to a criminal organization.

If he had, what had his colleagues in the Army and the security cabinet done?

How had it influenced the different contexts in which you have served in the military for more than half a century?

If the general's fall was surprising, as much or more was the reaction of the current government, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Since his arrest, the president and his cabinet have maintained a rather tepid position regarding the implications of the accusation against Cienfuegos, which favored the rotten apple theory: that the general was in the wrong direction does not imply that someone else is.

To date, the president has only promised an investigation into Cienfuegos, but it does not seem clear if it will have a greater scope.

What has not been so surprising in Mexico is the absolute secrecy that the United States administration maintained regarding the investigation.

The prosecutor's office set up the case and brought it before the judge in August 2019. The judge immediately ordered the arrest of Cienfuegos.

No one in the Peña Nieto or López Obrador executives was aware of the investigations.

And if anyone knew, they didn't say anything.

The proof is that Cienfuegos traveled quietly to Los Angeles, without knowing what awaited him.

Cienfuegos awaits trial along with the former head of the Mexican police, Genaro García Luna.

Both investigations originate from the district attorney's office in the eastern district of New York.

In the case of García Luna, the accusations are, among others, that of leading a criminal organization and trafficking drugs in collaboration with the Sinaloa cartel.