A former Guatemalan presidential candidate was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a New York judge on Tuesday for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

Mario Amilcar Estrada Orellana pleaded guilty to soliciting funds from Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel in a bid to help his election run last year.

Estrada, a candidate for the National Change Union party, had promised to support the drug traffickers’ activities if elected, which was considered unlikely, prosecutors said.

The 59-year-old was arrested in Miami in April 2019.

Estrada and co-conspirator Juan Pablo Gonzalez Mayorga were also charged with trying to hire hitmen to assassinate political rivals and with conspiring to use and

possess machineguns.

Gonzalez will be sentenced on April 15.

AFP