Mexico City – An alleged top collaborator of imprisoned Mexican drug lord Osiel Cardenas was sentenced to 44 years in prison for organized crime, attempted homicide and illegal arms possession convictions, authorities said Thursday.
Adan Javier Medrano, alias “The Professional,” was convicted of smuggling drug money from the United States into Mexico and distributing cocaine north of the border, the federal Attorney General’s Office said in a news release.
A member of Cardenas’ Gulf Cartel since 1999, Medrano also served as a gunman for the organization and was in charge of verifying the quality and quantity of drugs it received in the southern state of Chiapas and Guatemala, the release said.
Last week, Mexican authorities placed six people under house arrest for their involvement in a party for thousands of children in a northern Mexican border city that Cardenas allegedly financed.
Officials said all six have connections to a group of former elite soldiers who now work for the Gulf Cartel.
Mexican and U.S. authorities say Cardenas has continued to run the Gulf Cartel, which moves tons of cocaine and marijuana into the United States, since his arrest in 2003. He is being held at the top-security La Palma prison west of Mexico City.
