Salvador Cienfuegos, former Secretary of National Defense (Defense), reappeared on the public scene during the commemoration of the March of Loyalty led by President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The general, who headed Defense during Enrique Peña Nieto’s six-year term, interacted with some members of the Army.
Cienfuegos was on the platform where Sheinbaum presided, accompanied by her cabinet, the 112th anniversary of the March of Loyalty, after remaining out of the public eye.
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This is the first time that the former secretary has been seen near Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration, after his capture in the United States under accusations of ties to organized crime caused a crisis in the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In 2020, the general was detained by US authorities at the Los Angeles Airport, due to an accusation in which he was accused of drug trafficking.
After that, he was handed over to the Mexican authorities and the Attorney General’s Office exonerated him after finding no evidence against him.
In 2023, former President López Obrador awarded him the “Bicentennial of the Heroic Military College” medal during the reinauguration of the San Carlos Fortress.
López Obrador then maintained that the DEA’s accusation against Cienfuegos for having protected a faction of the defunct Beltrán Leyva cartel was revenge.
Likewise, the former president maintained that the accusation against the general who led the Mexican Army sought to weaken the Armed Forces so that US agencies would have a better position in Mexico.
Salvador Cienfuegos is –along with Genaro García Luna– the highest-ranking Mexican official who has faced criminal charges by US authorities.
His reappearance alongside Claudia Sheinbaum’s cabinet comes just a week after Donald Trump’s administration claimed that the Mexican government is linked to drug cartels, which the US blames for the fentanyl crisis that the country has been experiencing for years.
Source: oem
