Genaro García Luna, once Mexico’s top drug fighter, has been convicted in the United States of drug smuggling and taking bribes from cartels. At the end of the more than four-week-long trial in a New York federal district court, the jury came to the agreement on Tuesday after three days of negotiations that García Luna had led a double life. Accordingly, the former director of the Mexican investigative agency AFI and later Minister for Internal Security received millions from the Mexican Sinaloa cartel for years. He also smuggled more than fifty tons of cocaine into the United States.
García Luna, 54, was found guilty on all five counts, including international cocaine trafficking, intent to import into America and false testimony. The sentence will be announced on June 27; the convicted person faces twenty years to life imprisonment. Four years before García Luna, in the same New York City courthouse, Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges including drug trafficking and money laundering.
García Luna had pleaded not guilty. His defense accused the public prosecutor’s office that the approximately two dozen witnesses – almost all from the environment of the Mexican drug cartels – testified against the client out of revenge and were “murderers, fraudsters and drug dealers”. There is no solid evidence. In the case of “El Chapos”, not only testimonies, but also written messages contributed to his conviction. During the process, former cartel members released details of the deal between the senior official and the Sinaloa cartel.
“ruthless and greedy”
García Luna alerted the drug dealers to raids or provided cartel members with state law enforcement uniforms. A former member of the now-defunct Beltrán-Leyva cartel testified that, with the help of García Luna, the cartel had expanded its influence in Mexico from around four to more than half of Mexico’s 32 states. Once, after a meeting, the head of the cartel, which worked closely with the Sinaloa gang, loaned the officer an SUV to transport the millions in cash.
In return, according to prosecutor Breon Peace, García Luna “ruthlessly and greedily” accepted millions of dollars in kickbacks “stained with the blood of cartel wars and drug fights on the streets of the United States and Mexico.” According to the witnesses, he was given this money in thick bundles, for example in briefcases or suitcases. Peace went on to say that García Luna will now spend the rest of his days “as a traitor to his country and honest members of law enforcement.” A spokesman for Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador wrote on Twitter that justice had been done. The “crimes against our people” would never be forgotten.
The Mexican had moved to Florida after retiring from politics in 2012, was arrested in Texas seven years later and charged in 2019. The accusation of false testimony relates to an application for naturalization that García Luna had made and in which he is said to have lied about his crimes. Hardly anything became known during the trial about the role of the American drug agency DEA, which worked closely with García Luna at the time. He was one of Washington’s key contacts in the fight against drug trafficking for more than a decade until 2012.