A federal judge dismissed drug-trafficking charges against the former head of the Mexican armed forces who was detained by U.S. authorities at Los Angeles International Airport in October.
Judge Carol Bagley Amon granted a motion from the Department of Justice to dismiss the case against former Mexican Defense Secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos on the grounds that the Mexican government will investigate Cienfuegos when U.S. marshals turn him over at the border.
“While the old adage, a bird in the hand comes in mind … I have no reason to doubt the Government,” Bagley Amon wrote.
Cienfuegos stood accused of protecting border cartels and participating in the trafficking of drugs into the United States following his arrest at LAX.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrad said the government is happy with the news and intends to investigate claims of drug trafficking assisted by Cienfuegos.
“It’s a decision that we look at kindly and we think is positive,” Ebrad said. “We don’t see this as part of the road to impunity but as an act of respect towards Mexico and its armed forces.”
Cienfuegos, who served as defense secretary between 2012 and 2018 during the tenure of President Enrique Pena Nieto, had been charged with accepting bribes from the H-2 cartel, based in Sinaloa and Nayarit, Mexico, in exchange for protection while he was defense secretary.
In a statement released Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr said officers at the DOJ turned over evidence of Cienfuegos’s alleged crimes to Mexican officials and said that members of the DOJ will “support the investigating by Mexican authorities.”
