Former Family Lawyer for "El Chapo" and Morena Campaign Coordinator Jose Juan Soltero Meza Shot in Guadalajara

Carlos Lomelí Bolaños, one of the businessmen closest to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Morena’s former candidate for mayor of Guadalajara, Jalisco, admitted that he sold chemical precursors to the Sinaloa Cartel and delivered goods to the government of the United States for $2.7 million dollars, to get rid of the charges. The foregoing, according to documents and the testimony of two former agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) obtained by the Latinus news portal.

Official information held by Latinus confirmed what the businessman and former federal government delegate in Jalisco had denied, that is, that he sold chemicals to the criminal group and that he negotiated the delivery of money in exchange for the anti-narcotics agency of the United States suspend the investigation initiated against him in 2006.

He also confessed to having delivered the assets so that the Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) would remove him from the list of companies and people related to drug trafficking, just like his then-pharmaceutical Lomedic. Lomedic was accused in 2008 by the United States Department of the Treasury of being a front for money laundering for the Amezcua Contreras Cartel, and it froze all the assets and bank accounts of Lomelí, his family and his company in United States territory.

Since then, Carlos Lomelí Bolaños has been accused by OFAC of supporting the illegal diversion of methamphetamine precursors. The documents and statements obtained by Latinus contradict Morena’s candidate for mayor of Guadalajara, who in various interviews and publicly has insisted that the United States government removed him from the OFAC list because it found no elements against him.

According to a final judgment of forfeiture issued by a District Judge in El Paso, Texas on January 27, 2011 – obtained by Latinus–, Lomelí voluntarily surrendered his assets to the United States government and was involved in the distribution of Lovarin-P tablets to manufacture methamphetamine, as well as in money laundering.

The sentence signed by Judge Frank Montalvo establishes that Lomelí and his wife, Karina Lucía Navarro Pérez, handed over to the United States government about 2.7 million dollars deposited in three accounts in that country. The money, seized since 2008, was not claimed by Morena’s candidate or his wife, according to the court document.

The largest account opened at a subsidiary of the New York Mellon Bank, had $1.9 million on deposit. The other two were seized with a balance of 602 thousand and 100 thousand dollars, respectively. The declaration of responsibility and the association of the businessman with the Sinaloa Cartel, until now publicly unknown, was narrated by a DEA agent in a private meeting held at the United States embassy in Mexico, in March 2012.

Two DEA agents, the OFAC attaché in Mexico, and a group of lawyers were present there. “Lomelí spoke with the United States government, told them what he knew, and let the United States freeze 2.7 million (of dollars) of his assets. He admitted that he sold to organized crime, including the Sinaloa Cartel, and signed an admission of guilt in a show of good faith,” said one of the DEA agents identified as “M,” according to a 13-page written record he had. “The government followed up on the illegal sales of Lomelí and these coincided with the $2.7 million (dollars) of frozen assets,” it is indicated in one of the paragraphs of the minutes.

Latinus interviewed two former DEA agents who were closely acquainted with the investigation against Morena’s current candidate for mayor of Guadalajara and confirmed separately that Lomelí admitted his responsibility for facilitating synthetic drug precursors and having a relationship with Mexican cartels. about whom he provided first-hand information.

“Lomelí was never documented as an informant, but on his freedom, he agreed with the office (the DEA) to collaborate. What Lomelí told us is that he was mainly associated with Sinaloa, what was then called the Federation, with ‘Nacho’ Coronel, ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, ‘El Chapo’, with ‘Los Güeros’, the Rodríguez Oliveras and others who they worked there. Those people were his clients,” says one of the agents interviewed, who spent 25 years in the DEA, five of them working in Mexico.

According to the former anti-narcotics officer, the DEA began investigating Lomelí in 2006, and months later the pharmaceutical businessman became a priority target for the United States anti-drug office.