Former Nayarit attorney general pleads guilty to drug conspiracy
A Chula Vista man who rose to become the top law enforcement official in the Mexican state of Nayarit pleaded guilty this month to conspiring with drug traffickers to distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States.
Edgar Veytia, 48, used his position as the state attorney general to help traffickers in exchange for bribes, according to records filed in federal court in New York. In his official capacity, he would protect trafficking activities, obstruct investigations and release cartel associates and members who had been arrested by other Mexican law enforcement authorities, he admitted as part of his guilty plea on Jan. 4
Veytia, who goes by the nicknames “Diablo,” “Eepp” and “Lic Veytia,” was arrested on a warrant in March 2017 after he got off a plane in Tijuana and tried to enter San Diego through the Cross Border Xpress. He was then transferred to Brooklyn, where the drug charges were filed.
It is the same courthouse where Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is currently on trial on unrelated charges.
Veytia, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was born in Tijuana but lived off and on in San Diego and Chula Vista. He was drawn to Nayarit, on the Pacific coast, upon meeting his wife and her well-connected family there. He graduated from law school in the state capital of Tepic and held various law enforcement positions.
In 2011 there was an attempt on his life when his car was sprayed with gunfire.
He rose to attorney general in 2013. His campaign extolled law and order, once stating that Nayarit had “no room for organized crime,” according to news reports.
Authorities say the conspiracy began the same year he took office.
Veytia faces up to life in prison. Sentencing has been set for April 25. U.S. prosecutors could also seize up to $250 million in illegal proceeds.
Mexican news organizations have reported that Veytia is connected to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, which in recent years has made Nayarit its headquarters.
Veytia’s arrest left a vacuum in the power structure in Nayarit, the current attorney general told the Associated Press last year, resulting in bloody feuds between drug gangs in the area. Evidence of that dispute was found in a mass grave last January in the town of Xalisco, the base of operations for a black-tar heroin ring. At least 33 bodies, some of which may have been hacked up, were found in three graves.