The former Secretary of Security Mexico Genaro García Luna will be tried this Tuesday in New York accused of having helped the drug cartel Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman to introduce 53 tons of cocaine into the United States.
He is the highest-ranking Mexican official to sit on a US justice bench.
The Prosecutor’s Office accuses him of conspiring with members of the Sinaloa cartel to export and distribute drugs in the United States between 2001 and 2012, as well as of lying when in 2018 he applied for US nationality, reported the AFP Agency.
The US justice alleges that as of January 2001 he “became a member of the Sinaloa cartel conspiracy,” helping him not to interfere in drug trafficking, informing him of police operations, arresting members of rival cartels and placing others corrupt officials in influential positions of power. In return, he received “millions of dollars,” he says.
Arrested on December 4, 2019 in Dallas, state of Texas (south), García Luna has pleaded not guilty to the charges that could lead to a sentence of between ten years in prison and life imprisonment.
The trial begins Tuesday with the selection of the popular jury and is estimated to last eight weeks. This 54-year-old mechanical engineer by training led the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), in charge of fighting corruption and organized crime, from 2001 to 2005, and from 2006 to 2012, he was Secretary of Public Security in the President’s government. Felipe Calderón, controlled by the Federal Police.
DEA ally
García Luna “was not only the most powerful man on security issues in the government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), but was also an ally of the US anti-drug agency (DEA) and Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán” in parallel, Cuban-Mexican journalist Peniley Ramírez, author of the book “Los millonarios de la guerra” declared an organized crime party by the then president, told AFP.
His name appeared in the files in 2018 during the trial of “Chapo” Guzmán (sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States), held in the same Brooklyn court where he will now be tried by the same judge: Brian Cogan.
One of the witnesses is Jesús “Rey” Zambada, a former member of the Sinaloa cartel, who said that he had delivered suitcases with between six and eight million dollars in bribes to the former official in a restaurant between 2005 and 2007.
This “humble man who became a millionaire” when his term ended, “had the support of the Mexican government and the US government,” said Ramírez. “He had reason to believe that nothing would ever happen to him,” he added. When he left the government of Mexico in 2012, he settled in the United States, whose citizenship he applied for in 2018.
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What did the DEA know?
The defense, led by lawyer César de Castro, asked the judge on January 10 to allow him to present evidence of García Luna’s meetings with officials of the United States government, as well as “congratulations and awards” that he received from the United States “for his efforts to combat the Mexican drug cartels.
“In this case, the evidence of Mr. García Luna’s close relationship with US security forces and legislators is very relevant,” according to the lawyer.
To date, Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 homicides, the majority attributed to criminal organizations, since the launch of Felipe Calderón’s controversial anti-drug offensive in December 2006 with the active participation of military forces.
“Not enough has been said about how much the DEA knew of García Luna’s alleged criminal activities or when they found out,” says the journalist, who wonders “why the US government continued to trust him and for so many years even though there were plenty of clues that something was wrong.”
The current government of Mexico, which has requested his extradition to the United States, also accuses García Luna of diverting more than 200 million dollars from the treasury to his family companies.
In September 2021, the administration of the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador filed a lawsuit against the United States to recover García Luna’s assets in that country.
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In addition to García Luna, another high-profile trial also on drug trafficking charges awaits former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, initially starting in September.
Source: AFP Agency
Source: Gestion
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
