Arrest of Former Defense Minister Destroys Confidence in the Mexican Armed Forces

(CNN) – The general’s speech was forceful and unequivocal, his demeanor gloomy and severe. Impeccably dressed in full military uniform, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, then Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, spoke to a group of thousands of Mexican soldiers under his command on a spring day in April 2016 at Military Camp Number One, near the City. from Mexico.

“Those who act like criminals,” said the general, reading prepared comments, “those who disrespect people, those who disobey, are not only breaking the law, but are not worthy of belonging to the armed forces.” .

At that time, Cienfuegos Zepeda was reacting to a video that showed several soldiers torturing a suspect. The video of the woman crying, sitting on the floor with her hands tied behind her back, had gone viral in Mexico, tarnishing the reputation of an army that had been increasingly used by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto and his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, for law enforcement purposes, especially for Mexico’s war on drugs.

The general’s words now ring hollow. The man in charge of the Mexican armed forces between 2012 and 2018 was detained Thursday upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport. According to federal prosecutors, the 72-year-old is facing drug and money laundering charges.

Cienfuegos Zepeda, who served 54 years in the Mexican armed forces, is accused of accepting bribes in exchange for allowing a Mexican drug cartel, known for horrific acts of violence, to operate with impunity in Mexico.

Now what?

The arrest of General Cienfuegos Zepeda has shaken not only the military but also the trust that Mexicans have had in the military for generations.

A 2017 poll conducted by Parametría, a Mexican polling firm, found that six in 10 Mexicans agreed that the military should continue to do street security work. The survey also showed that the military was among the most trusted institutions in the country, a finding that had remained favorable to the military for the previous 15 years.

Local and federal police forces lost the trust of the Mexican people long ago. After all, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, aka “El Padrino”, leader of the Guadalajara Cartel at its peak in the 1980s and charged with the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985, began his career as a police officer. federal.

For two decades, presidents have entrusted anti-narcotics measures to the military, from the right-wing Vicente Fox in the early 2000s to his successor, Felipe Calderón, who declared war on the drug cartels at the beginning of the his presidency in 2006. Enrique Peña Nieto and the current president, the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

They have done so precisely because the armed forces were perceived as trustworthy and incorruptible. For many Mexicans, the arrest of General Cienfuegos Zepeda, who also served as director of the Heroico Colegio Militar de México, the most prestigious of its kind, raises a delicate question: what now?

Ramón Celaya Gamboa, a retired lieutenant colonel who works as a professor of military law, said the arrest of a former Mexican defense secretary is not only “unprecedented” but is a major blow to the Mexican government and its armed forces.

“The single arrest of General Cienfuegos has already had a strong impact on the media,” Celaya Gamboa told CNN. “It affects the credibility of the army as a whole and it also affects the credibility of the Mexican government. It reinforces the image that many have abroad of Mexico as a country of drug traffickers.”

In Mexico City, the arrest became the number one talking point overnight. For many Mexicans, the Cienfuegos Zepeda case hits at the heart of Mexico’s fight against drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations that have managed to corrupt government officials at the highest levels.

Arturo Alcántara, a 38-year-old psychologist, considered the arrest as “something negative with respect to the image of Mexico and Mexico’s fight against corruption.”

“If in the end it is proven that Cienfuegos is guilty, that means that one of those responsible for the Mexican war on drugs was corrupted by organized crime,” said Alcántara.

Others, like accountant Alejandro Barrera, 34, have a wait-and-see attitude.

“This man has to go through the entire legal process, and hopefully he is not a guinea pig just because he is an important political target,” Barrera said. “First they have to prove that he is guilty and, if that is the case, he must be punished.”

Jesús Esquivel, a US correspondent who writes for the Mexican weekly “Proceso,” says the general’s arrest did not surprise him. Esquivel has investigated corruption within the Mexican police and armed forces for years, and says he learned from sources about the upcoming arrest of a high-profile former Mexican official, a story he did not publish to avoid compromising the investigation.

“He [Cienfuegos Zepeda] is linked to the Beltrán-Leyva criminal organization, which dominated [the Mexican state of] Guerrero, trafficking cocaine, heroin and marijuana to the New York region when he was an officer in the Ninth Military Region of Mexico, “said Esquivel.” That is why the jurisdiction of the case will rest with the federal court in Brooklyn. “

Scope of Mexican criminal groups

The District Court of the Eastern District of New York is the same one where Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was found guilty of drug trafficking and other charges. He was sentenced in July 2019 to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to pay $ 12.6 million in forfeiture.

The Cienfuegos Zepeda case is not the first time that US law enforcement has targeted a high-profile Mexican official. Genaro García Luna, who served as public safety secretary from 2006 to 2012 during the Calderón administration, pleaded not guilty last December to charges related to a drug trafficking conspiracy after being arrested in Dallas, Texas. Federal prosecutors say Garcia Luna allegedly took millions of dollars in bribes from El Chapo.

Esquivel, the Mexican journalist, says that Cienfuegos Zepeda may have a lot of information that he might be willing to share with federal prosecutors, given that he was in a position to learn about possible links between criminal organizations and the highest echelons of the Mexican government during various administrations.

“What we don’t know is whether the US Department of Justice is going to offer a plea deal for the general to become a cooperating or protected witness, and that is what we will see once he appears before the magistrate in Brooklyn.” . New York, “Esquivel said.

Mike Vigil, who served as special agent in charge of the Caribbean and San Diego divisions of the DEA, says that the arrest of Cienfuegos Zepeda is a clear example of the strength and reach that transnational Mexican criminal organizations have, especially when it comes to his power to bribe.

“The drug cartels in Mexico, including the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Nueva Generación, have become very powerful,” Vigil told CNN. “They are making a lot of money and it is very easy for them to bribe high-ranking officials.”

Vigil also says that this high-profile arrest illustrates the lack of trust between law enforcement agencies in Mexico and the United States.

“This investigation was carried out for many years and there was no coordination with Mexico because Cienfuegos had many contacts within the government,” Vigil said. “If they had informed him that he was the subject of an investigation, they would never have caught him because he had never come to the United States. The formal complaint was sealed until his arrest Thursday in Los Angeles.”

In a July 2015 ceremony in Mexico City, where he received a prestigious award for his decades of service, General Cienfuegos Zepeda reflected on the responsibility of each Mexican to create a better country.

“We should ask ourselves, what are we doing to achieve peace? What kind of country do we hope to leave for the next generations of Mexicans?” Cienfuegos Zepeda rhetorically asked the attendees. “More specifically, what kind of Mexico do we want?”

This story was first published on CNN.com, “Former Defense Minister’s Arrest Destroys Confidence in Mexico’s Armed Forces.”