Los Angeles/Mexico City — US authorities detained the Mexico defence minister for former president Enrique Pena Nieto at Los Angeles airport on Thursday on a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warrant, a DEA spokesperson said.

As defence minister Gen Salvador Cienfuegos was a powerful figure in Mexico’s drug war in which the army battled cartels across the country. Several of Mexico’s former top-ranking “drug war” officials have been implicated in narcotics...

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