A Canadian citizen languishing in Guadalajara’s Puente Grande prison on drug-related charges is asking his government and his home country’s media for help getting him home.

Pavel Kulisek, 43, was arrested on March 11 in the fishing village of Las Barriles, Baja California, along with Gustavo Rivera Martinez and Antonio Moreno Herrera.

Mexican and U.S. law enforcement agencies believe Rivera Martinez to be a lynch pin in the powerful Tijuana drug cartel.

On June 11, Kulisek was charged with drug trafficking and criminal association. According to a federal police press release, Kulisek and Moreno Herrera “are probably responsible with providing protection and logistical/operation support to Rivera Martinez.” Rivera is also wanted on drug charges in the Southern District of California.

Kulisek’s family only decided to contact the Canadian media after charges were brought. They have hired Guillermo Cruz Rico, the Mexican lawyer who defended Brenda Martin, who spent two years in Puente Grande before obtaining a transfer to Canada in May.

“I was afraid to go public, just because I didn’t want to upset anybody in Mexico,” Jirina Kuliskova, Kulisek’s wife, told Canadian reporters.

Kuliskova said she and her husband befriended Rivera Martinez, who went under the name Carlos Herrera, at a motorbike race and had no idea that he might be involved in criminal activities. “We hadn’t had the slightest suspicion,” she said. “He was well respected in the community.”

The Kuliseks moved to Baja from Vancouver in October 2007 with their two small children. He worked in construction in Canada, but sold real estate in Mexico and recently received a Mexican realtor’s license.

The couple moved to Canada from the Czech Republic 18 years ago and became Canadian citizens in 1994.

Cruz said he expected that Kulisek’s case would take at least a year to come to trial.  Martin was found guilty of participation in an internet investment scam operated out of Puerto Vallarta and sentenced to five years in prison. Her case caught the imagination of the Canadian media and was followed closely in Canada.