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U.S authorities have detained the defense minister for Mexican ex-president Enrique Pena Nieto at Los Angeles airport on Thursday on a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warrant, a DEA spokeswoman told Reuters.
As defense minister General Salvador Cienfuegos was a powerful figure in Mexico’s drug war in which the army battled cartels across the country. Several of Mexico’s former top-ranking ‘drug war’ officials have been implicated in narcotics.
The high-level arrest comes less than three weeks before the U.S. presidential election. President Donald Trump, seeking a second term, has made clamping down on cartel activity a major policy objective, though with little major progress since he took office in 2017.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter that he was informed of the detention of Cienfuegos by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
“The Consul in Los Angeles will be informing me of the charges in the next few hours. We will give the consular assistance to which he is entitled. I will keep you posted,” said Ebrard.
A Mexican diplomatic source said members of Cienfuegos’ family, traveling with him at the time of the detention, have already been released.
The DEA spokeswoman told Reuters she did not have further details on the circumstances of the arrest, whether Cienfuegos was coming or going at the Los Angeles airport, or whether family or others were traveling with him.
