MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s former defense minister was arrested by US authorities on Thursday at the request of the Drug Enforcement Administration, senior Mexican officials said, the latest in a string of former senior officials officials linked to drug-related corruption
Gen Salvador Cienfuegos, who was Minister of Defense from 2012 to 2018 in the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, was arrested on his arrival at Los Angeles International Airport, the Foreign Minister wrote Marcelo Ebrard on Twitter
Gen Cienfuegos is the highest Mexican official to be arrested for drug-related corruption In the late 1990s, another army chief, the anti-drug tsar Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, was arrested and sentenced to 40 years in prison for accepting bribes from drug cartels He died in 2013 in prison
The arrest will give political impetus to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has based his political career on exposing corruption within Mexico’s political and economic elites The arrest also raises serious concerns about the use of the Mexican military to fight drug gangs and comes less than a year after the detention of Genaro García Luna, former head of the Mexican federal police He led the country’s war on drug cartels during President Felipe Calderón’s administration
Mexico, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Minister of Defense, Enrique Peña Nieto, Marcelo Ebrard
News from the world – United States – A former Mexican Minister of Defense arrested in US in DEA Request
