A brief thread on the origins of the US case against Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the ex defense minister of Mexico who was arrested in LA last month and is now being prosecuted in NY for working w/the H2 drug cartel, an offshoot of the Beltran Leyva org.
nytimes.com/2020/10/16/wor…
nytimes.com/2020/10/16/wor…
Buried in one of the very first documents released in Cienfuegos' case is a notice about an older *related* case that is going on in the same Brooklyn federal courthouse. 
So what is that case?
It appears to be a multi-defendant case involving the H2 drug cartel and the names of most of the more than 20 people charged in it are still under seal.
It appears to be a multi-defendant case involving the H2 drug cartel and the names of most of the more than 20 people charged in it are still under seal.
Three defendants' names have been unsealed. One of them is Kenia Alejandra Valdez Alvarez. She is said to be a girlfriend of the cartel's leader, Juan Francisco Patron Sanchez, aka H2, who was killed by the Mexican Marines in Feb 2017.
Another defendant in the case is Jose Dagoberto Cortez-Perez who US federal prosecutors have described as a cook or chemist for the H2 cartel. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018.
Only the final unsealed defendant, Deovaldo Gutierrez Alfaro, another member of H2, has any interesting documents about him on the docket. This one for instance indicates that he was a target of a large US wiretap operation based out of Las Vegas.
The case against Cienfuegos was itself largely based on wiretap evidence.
Presumably, the Las Vegas wiretap will play a central role in the prosecution as things move forward...
Presumably, the Las Vegas wiretap will play a central role in the prosecution as things move forward...
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