Updated at 11:34 a.m. ET
Retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, who served as Mexico's secretary of national defense during an extended, intensely violent struggle between Mexico's army and the nation's drug cartels, was arrested Thursday night at Los Angeles International Airport and faces drug-trafficking charges.
Mexico's foreign secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, confirmed the arrest via Twitter late Thursday, writing that U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau informed him of Cienfuegos' detention. On Friday, Ebrard tweeted that Mexico's consul general in Los Angeles has learned that Cienfuegos will be transferred to New York to face five charges related to drug trafficking.
The DEA declined NPR's request for comment on the case.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was told of the arrest Thursday night by his foreign secretary, who had been informed by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
"This is very regrettable that a former secretary of defense was detained, accused of links to narcotrafficking," López Obrador said at a news conference on Friday morning.
"Corruption is Mexico's main problem," he said. "This is an unmistakable example of the decomposition of the regime."
López Obrador said he has full confidence in his current defense and navy chiefs, who he said are "incorruptible."
Cienfuegos, 72, served as defense secretary from 2012 to 2018 under former President Enrique Peña Nieto. Felipe Calderón, Peña Nieto's predecessor, used the army in a bloody campaign against Mexico's drug cartels after he took office in late 2006.
The retired general's arrest appears to be the first of a top-ranking Mexican military officer in the ongoing fight against drug cartels.
President López Obrador said that any current government implicated in the Cienfuegos investigation will be dismissed and brought before the authorities. "We will not cover for anyone," he said. "That time has passed."
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