Over the course of a decade, Edgar Veytia, former attorney general of the Mexican state of Nayarit, went from being a public official with a reputation for vigilantism to becoming a symbol of collusion between state power and organized crime.
During his tenure, Veytia—known as El Diablo—not only protected cartels, but also built a network of repression and corruption with police support, public resources, and a subservient judicial system. The consequences of his actions still affect victims and fuel a culture of impunity that erodes the rule of law in Mexico.
The official who became a cog in the wheel of drug trafficking
A recent Los Angeles Times report indicates that Veytia amassed property, vehicles, and wealth through bribes from cartels, while using state police as a shock force to carry out torture, kidnappings, asset theft, and targeted killings.
Instead of combating crime, his prosecutor’s office allowed a criminal group—aligned with his interests—to prevail over its rivals. This “narco-pax” didn’t stop the violence; it reorganized it. Enemy groups were exterminated or expelled, drug trafficking grew, and public authority became subordinated to mafia interests.
Veytia embodied a type of informal power that, according to experts cited by the US media, demonstrates the fragility of the Mexican system: a state official with legal powers, co-opted by crime, capable of governing like a lord of the gallows and knife.
A paralyzed justice system
Veytia’s career was made possible thanks to his alliance with the then-governor of Nayarit, Roberto Sandoval, now imprisoned for corruption. Both consolidated a model of vertical control, where the prosecutor’s office, the police, and the political establishment responded to the same logic: profiting from organized crime.
This scheme was not an isolated case. As academic Guillermo Garduño pointed out to the LA Times, Veytia is “a clear example that in Mexico, organized crime and the political class are often one and the same.”
The effects were immediate. Nayarit, a state of 1.2 million inhabitants, underwent an abrupt transformation: it went from being a coastal tourist enclave to becoming a strategic drug trafficking zone, caught between the routes of the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.
In the capital, Tepic, bodies were reported hanging from bridges, daily murders, and particularly cruel forms of violence. Veytia acknowledged in court that, during his tenure, bodies were dismembered and placed in cans with corn kernels, a macabre allusion to the traditional Mexican dish, pozole.
From Prosecutor to US Government Informant
The myth of the incorruptible prosecutor collapsed in March 2017, when he was arrested by US federal agents at the San Diego border. In 2019, Veytia pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. According to the aforementioned media outlet, his collaboration with New York prosecutors was decisive in the case against Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former Secretary of Public Security, sentenced to 38 years for ties to the Sinaloa Cartel.
During that trial, Veytia claimed he received instructions from a former governor of Nayarit to protect Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s operatives, and that these orders came from Felipe Calderón and García Luna himself. The former president immediately denied these allegations and was never charged.
Thanks to his cooperation, Veytia obtained a reduced sentence: he was released in February 2025 after serving less than eight years. Although the Mexican government has requested his extradition on charges of torture, kidnapping, and enforced disappearance, Veytia currently resides in the northeastern United States.
Victims seek justice from exile
Despite his release, the aftermath of his time in power has not healed. Five families from Nayarit filed a civil lawsuit against Veytia in June in a federal court in Washington, D.C., under the 1992 Torture Victims Protection Act. According to the Los Angeles Times, the plaintiffs claim to have suffered torture, death threats, and extortion under his rule.
Among them is Gerardo Montoya, who said that in 2016 he was intercepted by state police, beaten, and taken to Veytia, who forced him to sign over his property. His wife, Yadira Yesenia Zavala, claims she was sexually harassed and pressured to hand over the deeds. “If you talk, you’re dead,” was the final warning that Montoya says Veytia gave them.
Another case is that of Yuri Camacho Vega, a former state agent who denounced the use of the police to protect a criminal group. After returning to Nayarit, he was detained, tortured, and forced to pay 1 million pesos to have his complaint dropped. According to his testimony, he was waterboarded and received threats against his family.
Veytia’s lawyer, Alexei Schacht, called the accusations “extortion” and asserted that the accusers “are lying.” “My client committed terrible crimes, but he has already paid his debt in a maximum-security prison and is now trying to rebuild his life,” he told the same outlet. The Veytia case is emblematic not only for the magnitude of his crimes, but because it shows how institutions—the prosecutor’s office, the police, and the governor’s office—can be manipulated to facilitate criminal control of a territory.
During his testimony, Veytia acknowledged receiving nearly 1 million dollars in bribes, in addition to luxury watches and other favors from the cartels. He also admitted to being responsible for at least ten murders and dozens of torture cases committed by his police apparatus.
Experts agree that the fact that so many former Mexican officials—from prosecutors to secretaries of state—are facing charges only in the United States, and not in their own country, is indicative of a structural crisis in the Mexican justice system.
Source: infobae
