Photo: Facebook/CBP / Courtesy
By: The opinion Posted Jun 21, 2023, 10:03 am EDT
The name of Denisse Ahumada Martinez She has captured the attention of the media in the United States and Mexico since June 10, and not precisely because of her work as a councilor in the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
And it is that the Mexican policy was arrested by agents of the Office of Customs and Border Protection of the United States (CBP) in Falfurrias, Texas, in possession of almost 42 kilos of cocaine.
Later it was said that It was not the first time that the woman transported drugs to the United Statesbecause on at least one previous occasion it moved another cargo.
Now her defense attorney, Samuel Reyes, revealed that Denisse was forced to commit this crime under death threats.
According to the police complaint, she acknowledged that she carried out a similar operation before, but “she never admitted that she was transporting drugs, that is a lie,” the lawyer, who took on the case of Ahumada Martínez in Texas, told the AFP agency.
“There are violent individuals in Mexico who are behind drug trafficking who presumably threatened her, they are linked to drug trafficking, a cartel, she does not know who these people are, but they threatened her with firearms, said they would kill her and her two daughters if he didn’t do exactly what he was told,” Reyes explained to the Border Report site.
“They told her: you are going to move this vehicle, and she moved the vehicle and she did not know what was inside. Approximately thirty days later, they asked her to move another vehicle, again, and if she didn’t, they killed her. She moved the vehicle and they stopped her at the Falfurrias checkpoint, where they found cocaine,” added the Texan defender.
Ahumada was facing a federal charge of possession with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of a controlled substance, but last week a federal judge threw out the charge for procedural problems and ordered his release.
However, she was re-arrested Friday pursuant to a Brooks County warrant on charges of possession of a controlled substance over 400 grams.
According to the report, Ahumada is being held in Hidalgo County (Texas) awaiting transfer to Brooks County and has not yet been granted bond.
In this regard, Samuel Reyes told AFP that he hopes that a “reasonable” bail will be set so that Ahumada Martínez is released and begins an asylum application with immigration lawyers. “I think, under her circumstances, she qualifies for asylum,” he said.
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