Mexico’s former president took a $100 million (£78m) bribe from drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the cartel leader’s secretary has told a New York courtroom.

Enrique Pena Nieto, who was president from 2012 until December, has always vehemently denied being in cahoots with the cartels.

But Alex Cifuentes, a Colombian who was Guzman’s right-hand man until his 2013 capture, told the court that the money was delivered around the time of Mr Pena Nieto’s inauguration, via an intermediary while Guzman was on the run.

On trial in federal court in Brooklyn since November, Guzman, 61, was extradited to the United States in January 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the cartel.

Cifuentes, 50, testified that he had told US prosecutors that it was Mr Pena Nieto who initiated the conversation with Guzman, asking initially for $250 million. A deal was struck and the sum reduced to $100 million, the cartel operative said.