United States: Former Mexican security secretary found guilty

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Mexican Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna was convicted on Tuesday in the United States of accepting bribes to protect the violent drug cartels he was supposed to fight.

Under tight security, an anonymous jury in New York federal court deliberated for three days before reaching a verdict in the trial against García Luna.

He is the highest Mexican official or former official ever tried in the United States.

García Luna, who has denied the charges, headed Mexico’s federal police and then served as the country’s top public security official from 2006 to 2012. His lawyers said the charges were based on lies by criminals seeking to revenge for their fight against the drug trade and to reduce their own sentences. helping prosecutors.

The former Mexican official showed no reaction upon hearing the verdict in a case with political ramifications on both sides of the border.

Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has lambasted throughout the trial against the government of former president Felipe Calderón for, at the very least, putting García Luna in charge of Mexico’s security. López Obrador’s spokesman, Jesús Ramírez, tweeted after the verdict that “justice has arrived for anyone who was a squire” of Calderón and that “the crimes against our people will never be forgotten”.

García Luna’s work took him to meet high-ranking American politicians and other officials who saw him as a key partner in the fight against drug trafficking as Washington embarked on a $1.6 billion initiative dollars to bolster Mexican security forces and stem the flow of drugs.

These U.S. officials have not been charged with any crime, and while suspicions have long hung over García Luna, the trial did not delve into the degree of knowledge U.S. officials had of them before their 2019 arrests. However, López Obrador suggested that Washington investigate its own police and intelligence agents who worked with García Luna during the Calderón administration.

A list of former Mexican traffickers and officials testified that García Luna received millions of dollars in cash from cartels, met with drug gang leaders and kept security forces at bay.

Cartel leaders viewed García Luna as their best investment, said Sergio “El Grande” Villarreal Barragán, a former police officer who worked underground for the cartels and later became a member of one.

Villarreal Barragán and other witnesses claimed that, under the supervision of García Luna, the police warned traffickers of upcoming raids, ensured that cocaine could flow freely across the country, collaborated with cartels to carry out raids against rivals and doing other favors for them. A former trafficker pointed out that García Luna shared a document containing information from US security forces about a huge shipment of cocaine seized in Mexico in 2007.

García Luna, 54, did not testify at trial, although his wife took the stand apparently to show that their property in Mexico was legitimately acquired, upper middle class, but not luxury. The couple moved to Miami in 2012, during a change of government in Mexico, and García Luna became a consultant on security issues.

García Luna’s lawyer, César de Castro, pointed out that the prosecutors’ charges were based on testimony from confessed criminals, without corroborating recordings, messages or a documented trace of money.

Garcia Luna was found guilty of charges including participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise, which carries a potential sentence of 20 years to life in prison. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 27.