Mexican president asks the US to inform if it investigates alleged drug contributions to his campaign

2024-02-22 19:16:01

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked the United States government on Thursday to report on the preliminary investigations that authorities in that country have carried out on the alleged financing of drug traffickers to collaborators of the president.

López Obrador made the request after disseminating in his morning conference a questionnaire that The New York Times sent him for a report he published on Thursday, based on testimonies from informants, about alleged millionaire contributions that drug traffickers gave to allies close to the president before the 2018 elections.

According to the report, US authorities spent years investigating complaints about possible links between drug traffickers and Mexican advisors and officials close to López Obrador, but in the end a formal investigation was not opened and the case was archived. People familiar with the investigations told the newspaper that the case was dismissed after the controversy sparked by the arrest in October 2020 of General Salvador Cienfuegos, former Mexican Secretary of Defense, who was accused by the United States of participating in an international drug trafficking network. drugs.

Cienfuegos, who was head of the Army between 2012 and 2018, was arrested in Los Angeles but the United States later dropped the charges and returned him to Mexico.

“All of this is completely false,” said the president, denying that any of his collaborators had met or received money from drug traffickers and harshly criticized the American media. “The New York Times is a filthy tabloid,” he added.

“The United States government is going to have to report,” said López Obrador, publicly requesting Washington to clarify whether the investigation mentioned by The New York Times was carried out.

“I hope that the United States government expresses something, manifests something. Also if they don’t want to say anything, if they don’t want to act with transparency, that’s their business,” said the president, ruling out that the possible investigation could affect the relationship between both countries.

At the end of last month, the media ProPublica of the United States and Deutsche Welle of Germany and the InSight Crime think tank published an investigation carried out by the US anti-drug agency DEA on millionaire contributions that the Sinaloa Cartel gave to collaborators of López Obrador for the 2006 elections that he lost by a minimal difference against Felipe Calderón.

The Mexican president also rejected that report and attributed the publication to the proximity of the campaign for the June presidential elections in the United States. After the dissemination of the controversial report, Washington reported that the DEA investigation was closed.

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