Photo: Federal Police of Mexico / Getty Images
NEW YORK.- The former Mexican police officer Iván Reyes-Arzate , alias “La Reina”, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, after pleading guilty to drug trafficking and of conspiring with organized crime, betraying the DEA and Mexican authorities.
The sentence imposed by Judge Brian Cogan exceeds the request of the defense, which requested a maximum of five years in prison for the former commander of the Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Federal Police, who pleaded guilty last October.
Although prosecutors assured that Reyes-Arzate will not cooperate with other cases, that was left in doubt, since part of the sentencing documents were sealed and both prosecutors and the defense had a private discussion with Judge Cogan.
In his statement, Reyes-Arzate acknowledged that he received a bribe – presumably of up to three million dollars. dollars – in exchange for helping the Beltrán Leyva Organization .
The sentence issued this Wednesday, February 9, in the Eastern District Court of New York occurs after the petition to Judge Cogan signed by prosecutor Breon Peace, which was partially sealed or “redacted” –as confidential information is known– before the possibility that Reyes-Arzate collaborates in other cases, such as that of the former Mexican Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna
, who is facing charges for drug trafficking in the same court.
The request for a five-year sentence and its justification were sealed, so that the terms and arguments are unknown, as well as the collaboration actions of Reyes-Arzate with prosecutors.
The past 29 December, prosecutors reported that Reyes-Arzate had also accepted the payment in installments of $290,000 Dollars, which is the official amount that he would have received in bribes.
The links of “La Reina” with drug trafficking were discovered when US agents and Mexican authorities persecuted several members of Los Beltrán Leyva, but the operations to stop the cocaine transported from Colombia to Mexico and from there to the United States constantly failed, because the former police officer provided the information to the drug traffickers.
A photograph of Reyes-Arzate, where he is seen sitting in a van full of drugs and carrying a weapon, shared with members of the cartel triggered the alerts of the authorities in September of 2016.