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US regulation enforcement officers spent years investigating allegations that associates of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with drug cartels and took hundreds of thousands of {dollars} after he took workplace, in accordance with US information and three folks accustomed to the matter.
The inquiry, which was not beforehand reported, revealed info pointing to potential ties between highly effective cartel operatives and Mexican advisers and officers near the president when he dominated the nation.
However the US by no means formally investigated Mr. López Obrador, and the officers concerned finally shelved the investigation. He concluded that the U.S. authorities had no need to pursue expenses in opposition to the chief of considered one of America's prime allies, stated three folks accustomed to the matter, who weren’t licensed to talk publicly.
Mr. López Obrador responded to questions from The New York Occasions on Thursday, calling the allegations “utterly false.” He stated information of the investigation wouldn’t “in any means” have an effect on Mexico's relations with the US, however stated he anticipated a response from the U.S. authorities.
“Does this scale back the Mexican authorities's belief in the US?” “Time will inform,” Mr. Lopez Obrador stated at a daily information convention.
Drug cartels have lengthy infiltrated the Mexican state, from the decrease to the higher ranges of presidency. They repay the police, management mayors, nook senior officers, and dominate massive components of the nation.
However whereas latest efforts by US authorities recognized potential hyperlinks between the cartel and associates of Mr Lopez Obrador, they discovered no direct hyperlinks between the president himself and felony organizations.
US officers declined to remark.
A lot of the data collected by US officers got here from informants whose accounts could possibly be tough to confirm and typically inaccurate. Investigators obtained the data whereas investigating the actions of drug cartels, and it was unclear how a lot of what informants advised them was independently confirmed.
For instance, information present that investigators had been advised by an informant that considered one of Mr. López Obrador's closest confidants had met with Ismael Zambada García, a prime chief of the Sinaloa drug cartel, earlier than his victory within the 2018 presidential election. .
A separate supply advised him that after he was elected president, a founding father of the notoriously violent Zetas cartel paid $4 million to 2 associates of Mr. López Obrador in hopes of being launched from jail.
Information present that investigators obtained info from a 3rd supply that the drug cartel had movies of the president's sons taking drug cash.
Mr. López Obrador denied all of the allegations made by the whistleblowers.
Two folks accustomed to the investigation stated U.S. regulation enforcement officers independently tracked funds from folks they believed to be cartel operators and intermediaries for Mr. Lopez Obrador.
At the least considered one of these funds, he stated, was made across the identical time that Mr. Lopez Obrador traveled to Sinaloa state in 2020 and met the mom of drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loera, higher referred to as El Chapo. And he’s now serving a life sentence in a US federal jail.
Greater than a decade in the past, a separate investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration led to allegations that traffickers donated hundreds of thousands to Mr. López Obrador's unsuccessful presidential marketing campaign in 2006. The investigation, which was detailed by three media shops final month, was closed with none expenses being introduced.
For the US, bringing felony expenses in opposition to prime international officers is a uncommon and complicated enterprise. Constructing a authorized case in opposition to Mr. López Obrador shall be significantly difficult. The final time the US filed felony expenses in opposition to a prime Mexican official, it finally dropped them after his arrest prompted a diplomatic rift with Mexico.
The Biden administration has an enormous stake in managing its relationship with Mr. Lopez Obrador, who’s seen as indispensable to curbing a surge in migration that has develop into probably the most contentious points in American politics. This can be a main concern for voters forward of the presidential election this autumn.
Mexico can be a prime US buying and selling companion and an important ally in US efforts to stop illicit medication like fentanyl from crossing the southern border.
US regulation enforcement businesses have jurisdiction to analyze and convey expenses in opposition to officers from different nations if they will present a connection to narcotics coming throughout the border into the US.
Whereas it's uncommon for U.S. brokers to pursue prime international officers, it's not unprecedented: The drug trial of former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez started this week in federal district court docket in Manhattan.
Federal prosecutors in New York additionally secured a corruption conviction final yr in opposition to Mexico's former public safety secretary, Genaro García Luna, convincing a jury that he took hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes from violent cartels.
Though efforts to analyze Mr. López Obrador's associates are now not energetic, the revelation that U.S. regulation enforcement officers had been quietly investigating corruption allegations in opposition to him could possibly be damaging.
Media experiences over the previous month, together with a report by ProPublica, a few US investigation into his 2006 marketing campaign donations – an election he didn’t win – prompted an uproar in Mexico.
Mr. López Obrador publicly condemned the tales, implying they had been geared toward influencing the nation's presidential election in June, wherein his protégé, former Mexico Metropolis Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is the frontrunner to switch him. Are. He instructed the experiences may complicate negotiations with the U.S. authorities on migration and fentanyl, and stated he was contemplating not welcoming President Biden's homeland safety adviser for a deliberate assembly within the Mexican capital.
“How can we sit across the desk and speak concerning the struggle on medication if he or considered one of his organizations is leaking info and harming me?” Mr. López Obrador stated at a daily information convention a couple of days after the tales had been revealed.
After President Biden referred to as on Mr. López Obrador to defuse tensions, the Mexican international minister stated the U.S. homeland safety adviser advised Mexico “it's a closed concern for them.”
The Biden administration has dealt with Mr. Lopez Obrador very rigorously, avoiding public criticism in favor of repeatedly sending prime officers to fulfill him in Mexico Metropolis and privately urgent for continued migration enforcement.
The choice to deactivate the latest investigation, folks accustomed to it stated, was largely prompted by the breaking of a separate, extremely controversial corruption case. Within the last months of the Trump administration in 2020, US officers introduced expenses in opposition to Normal Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who served as Mexico's Secretary of Protection from 2012 to 2018.
In a federal indictment unsealed in New York following a multi-year investigation codenamed “Operation Padrino”, prosecutors accused Normal Cienfuegos of utilizing the powers of his workplace to assist a violent felony group referred to as the H-2 Cartel run drug trafficking operations. Accused of utilizing.
His arrest on the Los Angeles airport prompted an uproar inside the Mexican authorities, particularly amongst leaders of the nation's armed forces, who’ve held higher obligations and energy below Mr. Lopez Obrador.
The president stated the allegations had been “fabricated” and his administration launched greater than 700 pages of communications intercepted by US brokers that confirmed felony exercise, however described them as inconclusive.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, which already has a checkered historical past as a protagonist within the bloody and futile drug struggle, suffered a extreme setback in its relations with the Mexican authorities.
Simply weeks after the arrest, below heavy strain from Mr. Lopez Obrador, the US Justice Division reversed itself and dismissed the indictment, sending Normal Cienfuegos again to Mexico.
The episode not solely broken the long-standing safety association between the 2 nations, but in addition left a deep impression on regulation enforcement officers north of the border, lots of whom unsuccessfully pursued the case in opposition to different high-ranking Mexican officers. Seen as a warning about trying related makes an attempt. ,
emiliano rodriguez mega Contributed to the reporting.