Federal Prosecutors Link Evidence Against Ex-Mexican Officials to El Chapo Case
Evidence in both cases is expected to overlap with evidence from the El Chapo trial, prosecutors explained in a letter to U.S. District Judges Brian Cogan and Edward Korman.
January 24, 2020 at 06:04 PM
3 minute read
Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. AP Photo: Marco Ugarte, File.
A former commander of Mexico's Federal Police was indicted Thursday in the Eastern District of New York, and officials say his case is related to two others involving prominent Mexican defendants, including the drug kingpin known as El Chapo.
The indictment of Ivan Reyes Arzate on charges of international cocaine distribution conspiracy and other offenses comes six weeks after former Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna was arrested on similar charges.
Both men are accused of accepting bribes from a drug cartel linked to the Sinaloa cartel. Joaquin Guzmán Loera, widely known as El Chapo, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for his leadership of the cartel.
Garcia Luna has pleaded not guilty, and César de Castro has been appointed as his lawyer. Reyes Arzate's lawyer, Mark DeMarco, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Evidence in both cases is expected to overlap with evidence from the El Chapo trial, prosecutors explained in a letter to U.S. District Judges Brian Cogan and Edward Korman. Cogan is currently assigned to the Garcia Luna case while Korman is assigned to the Reyes Arzate case, but prosecutors asked for Cogan to handle both cases for efficiency reasons.
From 2008 to 2016, Reyes Arzate led the Sensitive Investigative Unit of the Mexican Federal Police, according to a letter signed by prosecutors. In that role, he worked with American and Mexican law enforcement dealing with drug trafficking investigations, prosecutors wrote.
"He routinely had contact with and worked collaboratively with (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) agents in Mexico City," prosecutors wrote. "In exchange for at least hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, he assisted Mexican cartels in funneling cocaine into the United States, including New York City."
Garcia Luna oversaw the Mexican Federal Police while he was secretary of public security between 2006 and 2012, prosecutors wrote.
"In exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes, the defendant allegedly permitted the Sinaloa Cartel to operate with impunity in Mexico," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York explained in a press release after Garcia Luna's arrest.
Garcia Luna moved to the United States in 2012 and is accused of lying on a naturalization application in 2018 to hide his work with the cartel, according to prosecutors.
In 2018, Reyes Arzate pleaded no contest in Chicago to charges of obstruction and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was sentenced to three years in prison, much of which he'd already served while awaiting sentencing.
In a statement after Garcia Luna's arrest, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said his office is determined to prosecute people who helped cartels, "regardless of the positions they held while committing their crimes."
Read more:
El Chapo Found Guilty After 12-Week Trial for Running Drug Enterprise
In the Courtroom With El Chapo: Meet the Attorneys Handling the Alleged Kingpin's Trial
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