Former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos is just one of a number of high-ranking Mexican officials who have been accused of links to drug trafficking. Here are some of the other senior figures whose arrests over the past two decades underscored the extent to which the cartels have penetrated the Mexico's institutions: The former public security minister under president Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) was detained in Texas in December 2019. He was charged with taking huge bribes to allow notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel to ship drugs into the US. Garcia Luna pleaded not guilty in a US court and is being held in a New York prison. If convicted the 52-year-old faces up to life in prison. The former governor of the violent northeastern border state of Tamaulipas was arrested in Italy in April 2017 at the request of the United States and Mexico. He was extradited to the United States to face allegations including drug smuggling and money laundering. The 63-year-old is being held in Brownsville, Texas awaiting trial. The ex-governor of the eastern state of Quintana Roo was arrested in 2001 and extradited to the US. He was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison for conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes from the Juarez drug cartel through accounts at banks in the United States and elsewhere. He returned to Mexico in 2017 where he was again jailed. In June this year, the 72-year-old was moved to house arrest due to his fragile health. At the time of his arrest in 1997, Gutierrez Rebollo was the country's top anti-narcotics official. The general was accused of accepting bribes from then Juarez cartel boss Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as the "Lord of the Skies" for his fleet of smuggler aircraft. He acknowledged having had contact with Carrillo Fuentes, but said that his plan was to arrest the kingpin and that his superiors were aware. Gutierrez Rebollo was sentenced to 40 years in prison -- an unprecedented punishment in Mexico for a top military officer. He died in 2013 aged 79 in a military hospital where had been transferred due to ill health. sem-dr/dw