Photo: Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images
By: The opinion Posted Jun 16, 2023, 12:44 pm EDT
Jaime Antonio Mandujano Eudave is a 61-year-old Mexican businessman who has long been in the crosshairs of the US authorities for his collaboration with one of the largest criminal organizations in the world: the Sinaloa cartel.
After several years of investigations, the man received a sentence of 13 years in prison, the United States Department of Justice reported in a statement.
It was on March 8 when the man, described by the authorities as “leader of an international drug trafficking organization”pleaded guilty to the charges for which he was accused, more than three months later a judge sentenced him for cocaine trafficking.
Mandujano Eudave was a tuna businessman, so he knew the sea and the movement of the boats very well, a situation that he took advantage of to enter the world of drug trafficking, transporting large amounts of cocaine in the boats.
He worked with the Sinaloa Cartel to coordinate the transport of cocaine by boat from Colombia to Culiacán, Los Cabos and other places in Mexico, communicating GPS coordinates to the crew of the boats to facilitate meetings in the Pacific Ocean.
The cocaine was shipped from ColombiaThanks to his actions, the necessary operations were carried out for it to reach Mexico and from there other members of the Sinaloa Cartel were in charge of distributing it in order to transport it to the United States.
According to the Department of Justice, in 2009 Mandujano Eudave sent a vessel called the Fiona to collect approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean. In October 2009 the US Coast Guard intercepted the Fiona just north of Clarion Island, Mexico. Upon being discovered, the crew set the ship on fire, but the US Coast Guard was able to recover 500 kilograms of cocaine of the water.
The businessman was arrested in August 2014 in Madrid, Spain, at the request of the United States, which required him for his participation in cocaine trafficking. In February 2015, the man was extradited.
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