The Cienfuegos case, a case that now haunts the Sheinbaum administration

MEXICO CITY ( Proceso ).– At the request of President Claudia Sheinbaum, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) will once again present a report on the case of General Salvador Cienfuegos, the Secretary of National Defense during the Enrique Peña Nieto administration, who was arrested on October 15, 2020, at the Los Angeles airport at the request of the DEA (the United States anti-drug agency), and released on November 18 of that year after the intervention of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration.

Now the position of the Mexican government, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, is that the US released the general because he is innocent, although documents in the nascent judicial process in that country indicate he was released for foreign policy reasons.

Furthermore, there are statements from López Obrador himself that confirm his involvement in the case: "I felt an injustice was being committed," he said.

In October 2020, the federal government maneuvered to have Peña Nieto's Secretary of National Defense released in Mexico. The agreement with the US was that he would be investigated in Mexico based on information Washington had shared with Mexican authorities. However, the general was exonerated in January 2021.

Controversial comeback

In February 2025, during the Loyalty March, Cienfuegos returned to public debate after appearing on the event's podium. Months later, he reappeared in the national conversation following statements by Jeffrey Lichtman, the lawyer for Ovidio Guzmán—son of El Chapo Guzmán —a drug lord who recently reached a plea deal with the U.S. justice system.

"The idea that the United States government would include the Mexican government in any sort of negotiation or decision (regarding Ovidio) is absurd. Just think of the case of General Cienfuegos, a fairly recent one."

The Cienfuegos affair inevitably brings to mind the contradictory statements made by then-President López Obrador regarding Peña Nieto's general, whose responsibility was presumed because the proceedings against him in the United States were interrupted, unlike the fate of then-President Felipe Calderón's supercop, Genaro García Luna, who was sentenced and imprisoned in the United States for drug trafficking.

On October 15, 2020, AMLO expressed himself thus in the context of the general's capture: “We are facing an unprecedented situation because he (Cienfuegos) is detained on the same charge as Felipe Calderón's Secretary of Public Security (García Luna).

This is an unequivocal sign of the regime's decay, AMLO said, of how the public service, the governmental function in the country, deteriorated during the neoliberal period. I always said that it wasn't just a crisis, that it was a decline, a progressive process of degradation, and we are now witnessing the depth of this decay that has been brewing for some time.

López Obrador said, "We must continue to insist, and hopefully it will also serve to understand that Mexico's main problem is corruption."

Two days later, the then Morena president also considered that if, in the trial in the United States, "General Cienfuegos is found responsible, he should be punished. If other officers are involved and it is proven, they should be punished. In the case of García Luna, the same applies."

President López Obrador supports the Attorney General's Office's decision to exonerate General Salvador Cienfuegos. He claims the DEA fabricated the crimes against the former Secretary of Defense. There is no evidence to initiate a trial... pic.twitter.com/vvD5wpvcfr — DDC+ (@DDConfianza) January 15, 2021

As if that weren't enough, the then-president ruled out using any of his government's resources to defend Cienfuegos and referred the case to consular assistance. "When it comes to Mexicans being prosecuted or detained abroad, they are supported, there is consular assistance, but no resources are used to defend any alleged perpetrators of crimes. That possibility is not being considered. I believe the trial is just beginning," he said.

That same day, General Cienfuegos, who recommended his successor (Luis Cresencio Sandoval) to then-President-elect López Obrador, wrote a letter to the Tabasco native, a letter that he included in his book Halfway Along the Road.

In the statement, written from prison in the United States, the general stated that he was the victim of "an arbitrary, unjust, and humiliating detention, in front of my family, by the drug-fighting authorities of this country."

Cienfuegos asserted that the charges against him were false, and therefore, "I request your intervention so that the trial imposed on me is expedited and my innocence can be proven. I find what is happening extremely serious, not only for me and my family, but also for myself. It is a matter that goes beyond me or what I represent or represented (...) the important thing is that there is a great injustice, I feel powerless, and I lack the resources to pay for a trial in this country (...) I await your supreme determination."

President López Obrador's position then changed 180 degrees, and he became a defender of Peña Nieto's general.

In Cienfuegos's favor, his case unfolded parallel to the development of the electoral process in the United States. In that context, while López Obrador made few public statements on the issue, the former president revealed that behind the scenes there were a series of calls and efforts by the federal government to bring the general back.

Then came the series of exhibitions on the Mexican state's intervention in the return of Cienfuegos.

López Obrador had no difficulty stating: "What was done in this case was to intervene in political and diplomatic matters to express our dissatisfaction with an event that occurred and they decided to judge it in the United States without the knowledge of our government.

"This goes beyond the legal framework. That doesn't mean it's not legal. There was a collaboration agreement signed years ago on this matter, but it wasn't enforced and, in the case at hand, it was violated because we didn't have any information."

"We have to wait for the judge to decide on this request (...) we feel that the procedure was not carefully considered."

AMLO: “There was an intervention.”

In October 2020, the work of the Attorney General's Office, headed by Alejandro Gertz Manero, under an existing agreement, led the Department of Justice to ask Judge Carol Amon to dismiss the charges against Cienfuegos—on foreign policy grounds—which does not translate into a declaration of the general's innocence.

This decision pleased the Mexican president:

I want to thank the United States government for listening to our position and correcting it in this case.

In Mexico, the Attorney General's Office, as part of the agreement with the US, launched an investigation, and in just a couple of months, Cienfuegos was exonerated.

For López Obrador, the prestige of the Army, a fundamental institution for the State and his governmental project, was at stake... "And this is no small feat. We cannot allow, without the necessary means, the undermining of our fundamental institutions; moreover, Mexico is a country, let it not be forgotten, free, independent, sovereign," said the Tabasco native on that occasion.

Right there, López Obrador was clear: "So, since this is an important issue for Mexico, in every sense, that's why there was intervention, and yes, what was mentioned in that statement, that there was diplomatic intervention. Yes, there was. So much so that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs spoke with the prosecutor, and spoke with the US ambassador; a note was sent. Yes, there was intervention to reach an agreement."

This confirms that the United States did not allow Cienfuegos's transfer to Mexico because he was innocent; it merely dismissed his evidence, which was then sent to Mexican authorities for investigation into the general.

What the Department of Justice told the judge was that "there are matters or subjects that have to do with foreign policy and we recognize a very strong partnership between Mexico and the United States to combat crime, including drug trafficking, and that is why we have considered or asked that these charges be dismissed so that General Cienfuegos moves to Mexico and it is Mexico, in the first instance, that resolves the legal status (...) To allow the investigation in Mexico and his potential prosecution in the first instance in Mexico," read Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the previous six-year term, currently Secretary of Economy.

Clash with the DEA

Following General Cienfuegos's exoneration, a confrontation erupted between the Mexican government and the DEA, the U.S. anti-drug agency. President López Obrador said the agency fabricated crimes against the military officer.

President López Obrador supports the Attorney General's Office's decision to exonerate General Salvador Cienfuegos. He claims the DEA fabricated the crimes against the former Secretary of Defense. There is no evidence to initiate a trial... pic.twitter.com/vvD5wpvcfr — DDC+ (@DDConfianza) January 15, 2021

The response was not long in coming from across the Rio Grande, with the Department of Justice itself announcing: "We are deeply disappointed by Mexico's decision to close its investigation and share the information that was shared with it confidentially."

The DEA's anger was also sparked by the Mexican government's disclosure of some of the confidential information the U.S. government shared about the general. This "calls into question whether Washington can continue sharing information to support Mexico's criminal investigations."

Still in 2023, President López Obrador asserted that "the fundamental dissatisfaction (in the US) is because we intervened in an action that we consider a violation of our sovereignty by the DEA, and it was proven that they fabricated crimes against the Secretary of Defense of the previous government, but regardless of the fact that he was the Secretary of Defense of the previous government, we were able to confirm that it was revenge."

He even highlighted his defense of Cienfuegos: “Just as I came out to defend General Cienfuegos because I perceived it was an injustice, in politics you have to have a sure instinct, and that has worked for me. So, just as I came out to defend, to say: let's see, bring me everything, this is very strange (...) if Calderón says that García Luna is innocent, why doesn't he help him, if Calderón is a lawyer, and step in and defend him? Why does he stay silent?”

Now fully free, General Cienfuegos enjoyed decorations received from President López Obrador himself, and invitations to the presidium for the Loyalty March in 2025, the first led by President Sheinbaum.

Contradictions

On February 10, when questioned about Cienfuegos's presence at a presidential event, Sheinbaum asserted that the United States released the general because there was no evidence; and when reminded that his release in Mexico was due to the agreement and commitment that he would be investigated, the federal president rejected this claim.

???? SHEINBAUM JUSTIFIES GENERAL CIENFUEGOS' PRESENCE AND DISMISSES EVIDENCE AGAINST HIM Claudia Sheinbaum defended General Salvador Cienfuegos' attendance at the Loyalty March and asserted that there is insufficient evidence against him.

??"If there was evidence, I wouldn't... pic.twitter.com/BE8Q82Y2Mf — Juan Ortiz ???????? (@Juan_OrtizMX) February 10, 2025

"We know that Cienfuegos was returned to Mexico, but because of an intervention by the Mexican government," this reporter reminded President Sheinbaum, "in which issues related to the Mexico-United States bilateral relationship were discussed, but not specifically because he was brought to trial there and in which it was proven or not that he was colluding with organized crime."

–The United States Attorney's Office at that time (it was still President Trump's first term) did not have the evidence (...) Do you think –Sheinbaum asked this reporter– that if the United States government had really had something against General Cienfuegos, it would have released him?

At another point in the question-and-answer session, the federal leader stated:

“No, excuse me. There was no reason, there wasn't enough evidence, that was the reason for the release.”

"In Mexico, right?" Sheinbaum explained.

–And in the United States –the president reiterated.

At the morning press conference the following day, this reporter exchanged questions and answers with Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero.

"If the United States government withdrew its action because the documents don't include all the considerations you're referring to, it simply withdrew its action and sent all the documentation it had on that case to the Mexican government," the prosecutor said.

–Was there a formal communication in which they said, “Well, yes, we withdrew because, in fact, there was no evidence”?

–Let's see, comrade, please... When you officially notify a legal entity, and in this case a State, that the complaint it filed is not supported by any evidence, and you give it the opportunity to present evidence, you don't have to make any determinations or judgments other than "yes" or "no." You accepted that this non-exercise was legally valid. You accepted it! comrade, please.

At the time, prosecutor Gertz Manero claimed that the case in Mexico was concluded and that they had not received any complaints from the United States. What he was never able to confirm was the existence of a document in which the United States officially stated that it had no evidence and that, because he was innocent, it was releasing General Salvador Cienfuegos. This, in fact, never happened because it delegated the investigation to the Attorney General's Office (FGR).

The Mexican government asserted that its statements were the truth and not its official version, despite the fact that the United States did not explicitly assert that Cienfuegos was innocent. Furthermore, as López Obrador has repeatedly confirmed, there was intervention by his administration that led to General Cienfuegos's release in Mexico.