Brooklyn federal judge drops narco-corruption charges against Mexico’s former top defense official
A Brooklyn federal judge agreed Wednesday to dismiss drug trafficking charges against Mexico’s former defense secretary and send him back to his home country — a stunning about-face a mere month after the ex-top official was arrested.
The decision came a day after the Department of Justice suddenly announced it was dropping the drug cartel case against Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda and handing him over to Mexican authorities.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Seth Ducharme said Wednesday that “the office stands behind the case,” against the ex-top defense official, but vaguely added there was a “balancing of interests” between pursuing the charges and keeping U.S.-Mexico relations safe.
Federal Judge Carol Bagley Amon called the narco-corruption case “very serious charges against a very significant figure,” but gave the green light anyway.
“The old adage ‘a bird in the hand’ comes to mind, still I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the government’s decision,” Amon said. “There is no suggestion that this application is being made in bad faith.”
Cienfuegos agreed to be removed from the country after the case was dismissed.
His lawyers said he would be out of the country Wednesday on a U.S. government plane surrounded by marshals.
“He’s going to be on his way to Mexico,” said lawyer Edward Sapone. "Today is a day of justice, because today he has no charges against him here or in Mexico.”
U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced Tuesday that the United States would hand Cienfuegos over to the Mexican justice system, without explaining the change of heart. He said the DOJ gave its evidence against Cienfuegos to Mexico, which was pursuing its own investigation.
Barr stopped short of saying that Mexico would bring charges, saying only, “he may be investigated and, if appropriate, charged, under Mexican law."
But former prosecutors said the decision “reeked," hurt the credibility of prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York and was likely to mean that Cienfuegos would walk free in Mexico.
“With a Mexican official who’s involved in major drug trafficking, for prosecutors to dismiss the indictment knowing full well he’s not going to be brought to justice in Mexico, it doesn’t really pass the smell test. It looks bad,” said Brad Simon, a former Brooklyn federal prosecutor.
Cienfuegos — who as Secretary of National Defense ran Mexico’s air force and military under President Enrique Peña Nieto from 2012 to 2018 — was busted in October in Los Angeles by the feds on charges that he used his country’s military to protect the H-2 drug cartel and go after its opponents.
He was in direct conversation with leaders of the cartel and also texted with other corrupt officials, the feds claimed.
Cienfuegos was indicted for taking part in a conspiracy to manufacture cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana and distribute the drugs in the United States. He was also accused of laundering the money he made from the drug business.
While Cienfuegos — also known as “El Padrino” — is not the first public official from Mexico charged in the United States, he is the most powerful.
Also nabbed in the crosshairs of America’s war on drugs was Genaro Garcia Luna, the former Mexican secretary of public security, as well as Ivan Reyes Arzate, a former Mexican federal police commander. Both of those men are still being held at Brooklyn’s federal jail on narcotics trafficking charges.
The Brooklyn feds also famously took drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to trial, where he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison last summer.
