El Chapo paid $100m bribe to Mexico's former president, claims trial witness
The president's former chief of staff dismisses the claims and says Mr Pena Nieto helped bring El Chapo to justice.
Wednesday 16 January 2019 14:27, UK
Drugs kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman once boasted about paying a $100m (拢77m) bribe to Mexico's former president, his trial in New York has heard.
Colombian drug trafficker Alex Cifuentes - who claimed he was once El Chapo's right-hand man - told the court he had informed US prosecutors about the alleged bribe to President Enrique Pena Nieto in 2016.
Cifuentes said someone named Maria had delivered the money in Mexico City in October 2012 - when the president had been elected but before he took office.
He also confirmed telling prosecutors that Mr Pena Nieto had initially asked for $250m, and that El Chapo claimed he had received a message from the president saying he no longer needed to live in hiding.
His former chief of staff, Francisco Guzman, dismissed Cifuentes' testimony.
He tweeted: "The declarations of the Colombian drug trafficker in New York are false, defamatory and absurd" and said Mr Pena Nieto's government had "located, detained and extradited" El Chapo.
A spokesman for the former president, who left office last year, called the bribery claim "false and defamatory" when it came up earlier in the trial.
Cifuentes made his claims while being questioned by Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzman's lawyers, at the trial in Brooklyn.
He is one of the witnesses who have turned against Guzman after making deals with US prosecutors.
El Chapo, 61, was extradited to the US in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs as head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel.
He famously broke out of jail twice, including in 2015 when he escaped through a mile-long tunnel that had been dug to his cell.
The president personally announced the news of his recapture in January 2016.
Guzman's trial in the US is being held under extremely tight security amid fears of another potential escape plot and intimidation of witnesses and officials.