General Salvador Cienfuegos, former secretary of National Defense, arrived in Mexico from the United States this Monday night, after in an unusual decision a judge withdrew the formal accusation against him for drug trafficking and money laundering.
Cienfuegos was received at the airport in Toluca, State of Mexico, by personnel from the Attorney General's Office (FGR).
Later,
a Mexican federal prosecutor notified him of the existence of an investigation in which he is involved
.
"General Cienfuegos was notified and provided all his personal and contact information, including address and cell phone ... expressing his total willingness to meet the requirements of the investigation," said the FGR in a press release.
["It's an unprecedented event": what awaits General Cienfuegos in Mexico after avoiding drug trafficking charges in the US]
After reporting to the FGR office at the Toluca airport,
Cienfuegos withdrew from there at liberty
.
The Mexican authorities did not present an arrest warrant against him.
And the three charges for drug trafficking and one for money laundering in the United States were dismissed.
In this court sketch, former Mexican Defense Secretary General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda appears in federal court on Friday, October 16, 2020, in Los Angeles.
AP
In just one month,
Salvador Cienfuegos went from being arrested without the possibility of bail
, pending a trial in New York accused of having accepted bribes from drug traffickers to help them traffic drugs,
to being released today
when the US authorities asked to eliminate that formal accusation, from unprecedented pressure from the Mexican Government.
According to reports, the pressure was exerted with threats to expel the Drug Control Administration (DEA, in English), a resource that had not been used for any other Mexican being prosecuted in the United States.
"It is an unprecedented event": what awaits General Cienfuegos in Mexico after avoiding drug trafficking charges in the United States.
"It is an unprecedented event," celebrated on Wednesday Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, nicknamed AMLO, referring to the fact that the US government agreed to drop the charges after
very unusual pressure from the Mexican government.
[Why does it matter that Salvador Cienfuegos, the alleged "godfather" of Mexican drug traffickers, had not been investigated except by the United States]
On Tuesday, in an unprecedented decision, the US Department of Justice announced that it would ask for the charges against the general to be dropped.
The Mexican government praised him, saying that Cienfuegos' arrest last month had taken him by surprise and that Washington had not shared information about the indictment against him.
Protest posters outside the New York courthouse where a judge allowed the charges against Salvador Cienfuegos to be dropped.
The protesters denounce that the Armed Forces led by Cienfuegos committed human rights violations.María Vargas-Pion / Telemundo
Federal Judge Carol Amon of the Eastern District Court of New York agreed on Wednesday to have the drug trafficking and money laundering charges against Cienfuegos be dropped.
During Wednesday's hearing, the judge asked prosecutor Seth DuCharme
if it was US Attorney General William Barr who wanted the charges dropped, to which DuCharme answered yes
.
DuCharme said that the decision responds to a "balance of interests" and that the US government believes that the measure is beneficial for the bilateral relationship of both countries.
[The secrets of the Sinaloa Cartel bribes, according to his former lieutenant Vicente Zambada]
Amon admitted that the prosecution's request was not very common, but said the law says it should be passed unless it is contrary to the benefit of the public interest.
The judge added that they are "very serious charges against someone very important," but noted that she has "no reason to doubt the sincerity of the government's position."
Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said on Wednesday that he had told Barr that the
United States had to choose between trying Cienfuegos or continuing cooperation with Mexico.
Ebrard explained that he did not threaten "any specific action", but said he imagined that Barr was "concerned".
The foreign minister also said that he called the US ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, to express Mexico's anger.
With information from The Associated Press
.