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NEW YORK — A Colombian drug trafficker testified Tuesday that Mexican cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman boasted about paying a $100 million bribe to the former president of Mexico to call off a manhunt for the notorious kingpin.

Alex Cifuentes spoke about the alleged bribe to former President Enrique Pena Nieto while being cross-examined at Guzman’s murder and drug conspiracy trial in New York.

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A spokesman for Pena Nieto, who left office last year, called the bribery claim “false and defamatory” when it first came up earlier in the trial. Pena Nieto was still president when Guzman was captured in 2016 and extradited to the U.S. in 2017.

Attempts to contact Pena Nieto and his representatives were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Cifuentes acknowledged that he first spoke with prosecutors about the bribery allegation when he began co-operating with U.S. authorities in 2016. After expressing confusion about the details, he acknowledged that he had told prosecutors that he was informed by Guzman that someone named “Comadre Maria” delivered money in Mexico City in October 2012, at a point when Pena Nieto had been elected president but before he took office.