In the case against General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda

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1. THE ARREST

When the Cienfuegos family landed at Los Angeles International Airport on October 15, 2020, they looked excited and perhaps a little relieved. While the pandemic was still ravaging Mexico, they had come to vacation in Southern California. Organizing such a visit was no problem, even on short notice: the patriarch, retired general Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, had made powerful American friends during his six years as defense minister of the Mexico. When he needed a favor—like visas for his wife, daughters, and granddaughters—he could always call someone at the Pentagon or the C.I.A., an immigration officer waved them over. discard. A middle-aged man, dressed like the general in a blue blazer and jeans, came forward and introduced himself in Spanish as a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent. Could he speak with the general in private? he asked.

The two men huddled together in a small office with several other law enforcement officers. "There's a warrant out for your arrest, sir," the officer said. "This is a copy of the indictment against you."

Cienfuegos was wearing a face mask with a clear plastic shield on it, but he couldn't hide his confusion and anger. There must be a mistake, he insisted. "Do you know who I am?"

The agents did. For years, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies observed Cienfuegos as he rose through the Mexican military to become defense minister in 2012. Since late 2015, the D.E.A. had been investigating what he believed to be Cienfuegos' corrupt dealings with a second-tier drug gang based in the small Pacific Coast state of Nayarit. In 2019, he was secretly indicted on drug conspiracy charges by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn.

"I worked with your C.I.A.", Cienfuegos protested . "I have been honored by your Department of Defense!"

"I understand," the D.E.A. said the agent. "But you were charged anyway."

In the tumultuous days leading up to the 2020 election – with Covid cases rising, President Donald Trump raging and Senate Republicans rushing to uphold a Supreme Judicial Justice - the jailing of a retired Mexican general didn't make headlines, even in Los Angeles. He made headlines in Mexico City. But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, who had long promised to defeat the country's deep-rooted corruption, appeared to take the news head on. "It's a very unfortunate fact that a former secretary of defense is being arrested for having ties to the drug trade," he said the next morning. "We must continue to emphasize - and I hope this will help us understand - that Mexico's main problem is corruption."

U.S. law enforcement had previously prosecuted Mexican officials. There was the first drug czar, Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, hailed in Washington for his “unquestioned integrity” before being convicted in Mexico for accepting bribes from a trafficker. Or smuggler-friendly Governor Mario Villanueva Madrid, known as Crooked One, who charged $500,000 for drug shipments through his state on the Yucatán Peninsula. In 2019, the D.E.A. arrested a once-powerful former security minister, Genaro García Luna, who worked closely with the agency for years.