Nayarit attorneygeneral arrested on drugs charges

LOS ANGELES: The attorneygeneral of Mexico’s Pacific coast state of Nayarit, hard hit by drug cartel violence in recent years, has been arrested in San Diego on US narcotics trafficking conspiracy charges, federal officials said yesterday.

Edgar Veytia (45), who has served as the top law enforcement officer of Nayarit since 2013, was charged in a sevenpage, threecount indictment returned by a federal grand jury on Tuesday in New York and unsealed yesterday.

He was taken into custody on Tuesday in San Diego by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, acting on an arrest warrant, an FBI spokeswoman in San Diego said.

The arrest is another blow for President Enrique Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governs Nayarit and is reeling from corruption scandals that have led former governors to flee criminal charges.

Veytia was arraigned in US District Court in San Diego on Wednesday, the FBI spokeswoman, Davene Butler, told Reuters. No further details of his arrest or court appearance were immediately released.

He is accused of plotting with unnamed conspirators in the United States to manufacture, import and distribute unspec ified quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana between January 2013 and February 2017. The nature and scope of the alleged conspiracy were not specified.

The governor of Nayarit, Roberto Sandoval, said the state government would cooperate with the investigation in Mexico and the United States and said he did not know details of the accusations against Veytia. — Reuters