Mexican drug czar sentenced to 38 years

His arrest in Belize three years ago rocked the drug trade in three countries, netted law enforcement authorities a ton and a half of cocaine, and resulted in multiple arrests of major players in the illegal trade. And tonight, forty-one year old Jorge Manuel Torres Teyer, described as a member of one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent narcotics organizations, is in a jail cell… and that’s where he’ll spend the next thirty-eight years, having been convicted yesterday in a New York court on drug importation and firearms charges. Torres was indicted along with several other men, including Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, the former Governor of the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Torres Teyer was arrested in October 2001 in Belize City just as Hurricane Iris threatened the coast, forcing the drug lord to hide a ton and a half of cocaine in a local apartment complex. In Belize, Torres Teyer was arrested with three other men, Victor Manuel Adan Carrasco, Oscar Moreno Aguirre, and Liston McCord. According to the United States’ Department of Justice, McCord provided logistical support to the cartel, which was shipping tons of cocaine through Belize and Mexico, with its final destination being the United States. McCord pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years. In handing down his judgment against Torres Teyer, U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch told him, “none of the defendants I have sentenced to these long prison terms comes close to you in terms of the size and scope of the conspiracies in which they have participated, the quantities of drugs they dealt in or their significance to the international narcotics trade.” At the conclusion of this case, the efforts of law enforcement officials in the United States and Mexico were commended. Specific mention was also made of the D.E.A.’s Belize Country Office, the Belize Police Department, and Director of Public Prosecutions Kirk Anderson.