The former Mexican politician, who led the United Cartels of Michoacán, sent half a ton of methamphetamine hidden in different materials such as cement tiles or dissolved in buckets of paint for homes.
By Carlos Alvarez Acevedo
Tijuana, February 11 (Zeta).- The District Court, for the Southern District of Floridain Miamisentenced Adalberto Fructuoso Comparán Rodríguez, alias “Fruto”, former mayor of Aguililla, Michoacán, to 10 years in prison for sending a shipment of 550 kilos of “crystal” or methamphetamine.
The federal judge said that Comparán Rodríguez, considered the leader of the United Cartels in Michoacán, sent 500 kilograms of methamphetamine from Mexico, through Texas, to the Miami area. To make the drug undetectable, the members of the criminal organization that the Michoacan politician led hid it inside different materials.
On March 20, 2021, according to reports, a truck carrying concrete tiles filled with methamphetamine arrived in Miami. Supposedly, “Fruto’s” son, Adalberto Fructose Comparán Bedolla, helped open the concrete slabs and removed approximately 200 kilograms of methamphetamine from them. The rest of the drug -more than 300 kilograms- arrived in Florida on March 26, 2021.
EXTRADITED TO THE US “FRUTO”, FORMER MAYOR OF AGUILILLA, LEADER OF THE UNITED CARTELS OF MICHOACÁN
Adalberto Fructuoso Comparán Rodríguez, alias “Fruto”, former mayor of Aguililla, Michoacán, was extradited to the United States, on June 13, 2022, for his alleged participation in a drug trafficking network and upon arriving in that country, he appeared before the District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in Miami, accused of the crime of drug trafficking -specifically more than 499 kilos- of “crystal” or high-consumption methamphetamine, according to the US Department of Justice.
The former municipal president of Aguililla, between 2008 and 2011, is considered the leader of the United Cartels in Michoacán, he was extradited from Guatemala, where he was arrested on March 30, 2021, by the authorities of the Central American country, “based on a request of provisional arrest”, issued by the United States Government.
The Guatemalan Public Ministry assured that Comparán Rodríguez was “a leader of the United Cartels” of drug trafficking in his country and also “a former member of the Knights Templar Cartel.” They also indicated that the former mayor was unharmed in an attack against him in 2015, in which one of his bodyguards died.
In addition, the US Department of Justice reported that they were also prosecuted for their alleged participation in the methamphetamine scheme: Alfonso Rustrian, from Mexico; Adalberto Fructose Comparán Bedolla, son of the former municipal president of Michoacán; Carlos Basauri Coto; Silviano González Aguilar; and, Salvador Valdez.
According to the allegations, in January 2021, Comparán Rodríguez and Rustrian met in Cali, Colombia, with a potential buyer, a person they believed to be a money launderer and drug trafficker associated with Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite Muslim organization. But he was actually a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. The former mayor’s partner explained that the politician was a leader of the United Cartels, and that they could supply hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine.
Ultimately, they agreed that Comparán Rodríguez and Rustrian would ship 500 kilograms of methamphetamine from Mexico, through Texas, to the Miami area. In the documents, related judicial documents, from the District Court for the Southern District of Florida, under case number 21-cr-20221, indicate that in order to make the methamphetamine undetectable, the members of Los Cárteles Unidos hid it inside different materials, as cement tiles or in a 300-kilo shipment to Miami, dissolved in buckets of house paint.
Likewise, Comparán Rodríguez and two chemists “worked for days inside a warehouse extracting pure methamphetamine crystal from the paint,” but the authorities “seized the methamphetamine before it went out on the street.” On March 31, 2022, the Attorney for the Southern District of Florida filed charges against the former mayor in the Federal Court of said state.
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