US: Ex Mexican Cop Pleads Guilty to Aiding Drug Cartel

Published: 16 May 2012

By

Former Mexican law enforcement official Jesus Quinonez pled guilty on Tuesday to charges of participating in a federal racketeering conspiracy. He was convicted at a federal court in California, and could face life in prison. Quinonez was arrested in 2010.

Quinonez admitted to providing confidential law enforcement information to the notorious Tijuana drug cartel between 2009 and 2010. At the time, he was working as the Director of International Liaison for the Baja California Attorney General’s Office. He was the primary contact person in Baja for the US law enforcement agencies, and the highest-ranking of the four Baja law enforcement officers charged in the case.

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Tijuana cartel, also known as the Fernando Sanchez Organization (FSO), is “an offshoot of the Arellano-Felix drug-trafficking cartel” from Tijuana, Mexico.

Quinonez was also charged with being “involved in making arrangements to have various rivals of the FSO arrested and detained by Mexican law enforcement officials,” the DEA stated.

Charges filed against a total of 43 defendants included “murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, drug trafficking and money laundering offenses.” Four defendants in the case are still at large. According to the U.S. Assistant Attorney James Melendres, about half of the defendants in the case are US citizens.

Corruption among law enforcement and government officials is rampant in Mexico, making the job of the anti-drug agencies harder. Drug cartels are often able to bribe authorities, both at the local and the federal levels. Because of this situation, the US authorities are weary of corruption among the officials they work with.

“Any time we work with other countries, security is a concern,” U.S. Assistant Attorney Todd Robinson said. “We continue to hope and believe Quinonez was an isolated incident of someone being corrupted by organized crime.”

Quinonez sentencing is scheduled for August 6.