XPost: alt.drugs.cocaine, alt.mexico, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.republicans   
   From: albasani.kook@albasani.net"   
      
   (Reuters) - Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman   
   once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President   
   Enrique Pena Nieto, a former associate testified on Tuesday that   
   he previously told U.S. authorities.   
      
   Alex Cifuentes, who has described himself as Guzman’s onetime   
   right-hand man, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-   
   examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal   
   court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged   
   the bribe, he answered, “That’s right.”   
      
   Cifuentes testified that he had told U.S. prosecutors Pena Nieto   
   reached out to Guzman first, asking for $250 million. Cifuentes   
   told the prosecutors that the bribe was paid in October 2012,   
   when Pena Nieto was president-elect, he testified.   
      
   Cifuentes said he told prosecutors at a later meeting, last   
   year, that he was no longer sure of the exact amounts of the   
   bribes, but did not elaborate.   
      
   Cifuentes also said testified that Guzman once told him that he   
   had received a message from Pena Nieto saying that he did not   
   have to live in hiding anymore.   
      
   Pena Nieto has previously denied taking bribes from drug   
   traffickers.   
      
   Reuters could not immediately reach Pena Nieto for comment. His   
   former spokesman and other former officials did not immediately   
   respond to messages requesting comment.   
      
   Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until   
   November 2018. He previously served as governor of the state   
   that includes Mexico City.   
      
   Guzman, 61, has been on trial since November. He was extradited   
   to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking   
   cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of   
   the Sinaloa Cartel.   
      
   Captured by Pena Nieto’s government in February 2014, Guzman   
   broke out of prison for a second time some 17 months later,   
   escaping through a mile-long tunnel dug right into in his cell.   
      
   The jailbreak humiliated the government and battered the   
   president’s already damaged credibility, though Pena Nieto   
   personally announced news of the kingpin’s third capture when he   
   was again arrested in northwestern Mexico in January 2016.   
      
   Colombian-born Cifuentes is one of about a dozen witnesses who   
   have so far testified against Guzman after striking deals with   
   U.S. prosecutors, in a trial that has provided a window into the   
   secretive world of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s most   
   powerful drug trafficking organization.   
      
   Other witnesses at the trial have also made accusations of high-   
   level corruption.   
      
   Jesus Zambada, another cartel member, testified in November he   
   paid a multimillion dollar bribe to an aide of current Mexican   
   President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005. The aide was not   
   named but later Gabriel Regino, an official in Mexico City when   
   Lopez Obrador was mayor, wrote on Twitter that an accusation of   
   bribery had emerged against him in the trial but was false.   
      
   Cifuentes earlier on Tuesday had also testified that Guzman   
   asked an associate to pay a $10 million bribe to a general. The   
   witness said the bribe was never paid and Guzman subsequently   
   ordered the associate killed, though the hit was never carried   
   out.   
      
   https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-trump-   
   insight/how-trump-slowed-rush-for-syria-exits-after-huddle-in-   
   iraq-idUSKCN1P92P9   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)