El Chapo gave former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto a $100million bribe in 2012, according to the drug kingpin's right hand man.

Alex Cifuentes is one of several witnesses testifying against his former boss at a highly anticipated Brooklyn trial.

On Tuesday, he claimed under cross-examination from El Chapo's lawyers that he had the bribe delivered to Nieto by an unnamed woman in Mexico City.

'Mr. Guzmán paid a bribe of $100 million to President Peña Nieto?' Jeffrey Lichtman, one of the drug dealer's lawyers, asked.

Cifuentes replied 'yes' but later tried to backtrack, saying: 'It wasn't like that.'

Cifuentes first told prosecutors about the bribe in 2016 after El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman, was recaptured.

At the time the bribe is said to have been given, Guzman was on the run after his first prison escape in 2001 and Nieto had just been elected.

It was during the years between 2001 and 2014, when he was captured again, that he was able to grow his empire from the Sinaloa mountains.

Alex Cifuentes (seen left with the drug kingpin) told his trial on Tuesday that he gave Enrique Pena Nieto (right) a $100million bribe in Mexico City in 2012 when he was on the run

Cifuentes did not tell the court on Tuesday specifically whether the bribe was for.

El Chapo was arrested again in 2014, when Nieto was still in office.

It supports claims made by El Chapo's followers and even his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who have long claimed that Nieto is corrupt and disloyal to the people of Mexico.

The former Mexican president has always vehemently denied accepting bribes from any cartel groups.

He proudly boasted about Guzman's recapture in 2016 then handed him over to the US without question the following January.

Elsewhere in his testimony on Tuesday, Cifuentes told how his former boss once ordered the death of his secretary because he thought she was lying when she told him that a Mexican general 'hated him' and had refused a bribe to stay off his case.

A court sketch depicting Cifuentes testifying against his former boss while he watched on Tuesday

No cameras are allowed inside the Brooklyn courtroom where El Chapo's trial is taking place. A sketch depicts defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman questioning Cifuentes on Tuesday while his client watched

ENRIQUE PENA NIETO: MEXICO'S SCANDAL-HAUNTED FORMER PRESIDENT Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in 2012. He took over from Felipe Calderon whose own office faced widespread corruption allegations. When Nieto triumphed, he brought the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) - which had long been detested by the Mexican public for unscrupulous corruption - back into power after a 12 year absence. Nieto was sworn in in November 2012. Over the next several years, more than 10 governors would be implicated on corruption charges and 43 students would go missing in the state of Guerrero. Their bodies have never been found and despite claims from the government that their deaths were the result of cartel scare tactics and corrupt police, questions still persist over what happened to them. During his campaign, he was forced to admit that he had fathered two children with other women while he was married to his soap star wife Angelica Rivera (pictured with him during the Mexico Independence Day Celebrations at Zocalo on September 15, 2018) The widespread distrust in Nieto and his predecessors is what fueled El Chapo's popularity in the impoverished communities where he held ranks. Among other scandals Nieto found himself embroiled in were claims that he and his wife bought their home in a sweetheart deal from a contractor he was accused of then giving kick backs to. During his campaign, he was forced to admit that he had fathered two children with other women while he was married to his soap star wife. Advertisement

The secretary, Andrea Velez, had been told to proposition the general, who was not named.

Cifuentes said Velez often provided girls from her modelling agency to entertain the general at parties and that they wanted to keep him on side.

She asked him if he would take money to lay off El Chapo's case but, according to Cifuentes, he refused and told her he 'hated' her boss 'very much'.

When she relayed the news to Guzman, he was in disbelief and accused her of making it up.

'He was angry and he said she was a liar, he ordered her killed,' Cifuentes said.

He ordered her dead but she was never killed. Cifuentes did not specify when the order was made. He was captured again in 2014 then escaped from prison in 2015 and was not taken back into custody until the following year.

El Chapo's lawyers' defense is that he was framed by his partner as part of a 'vast conspiracy' which also involves the Mexican government.