A Makati City court judge on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment an alleged member of the Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa who was arrested in a buy-bust operation at a hotel in the city five years ago.
Judge Selma Palacio Alaras, of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 63, also ordered the Mexican Horacio Hernandez Herrera to pay P500,000 to P10 million after he was found guilty of for violating the Dangerous Drugs Law.
In other developments:
• The Justice department on Wednesday hailed the decision against Herrera.
Justice Undersecretary and spokesman Mark Perete said the decision against Herrera was a welcome development in the government’s fight against illegal drugs.
• The Sinaloa cartel, a multi-billion-dollar Mexican drug empire, has teamed up with Chinese syndicates to smuggle narcotics into the country, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said Wednesday.
Sinaloa’s operations in the Philippines flourished even after the 2015 arrest of its then Top 3 leader Herrera, said PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino.
Herrera was arrested after selling P12 million worth of cocaine to a poseur buyer inside a hotel in Makati City in January 2015.
The authorities recovered 2.5 kilos of cocaine from him.
Justice department officials claimed Herrera is a mid-level member of the Sinaloa drug cartel engaged in the distribution of prohibited drugs including shabu, ecstasy, and cocaine in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.
The cartel’s founder, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, was captured in Mexico in January 2016 and extradited to the United States a year later.
The Sinaloa drug cartel is considered the world’s most powerful drug trafficking and organized crime group.
PDEA officials said Mexico was one of the countries of origin of the drugs being distributed in the Philippines. The other two were China and Taiwan. They said cocaine, shabu, marijuana, and ecstasy were the top three narcotics in the country being manufactured by drug syndicates in these countries.
The syndicates are reportedly distributing drugs in cahoots with local government officials in the country.
To solve the problem, the PNP has reactivated Operation: Double Barrel Reloaded in close coordination with PDEA, which assists in the conduct of an investigation of suspected drug personalities. With Rey E. Requejo
