NEW YORK — A former member of Mexico’s presidential cabinet was convicted in the United States on Tuesday of accepting massive bribes to protect the violent drug cartels he was tasked with fighting.
Under tight security, an anonymous jury in federal court in New York deliberated three days before reaching a verdict in the drug trafficking case against former Public Safety Secretary Genaro García Luna.
He is the highest Mexican official to have been tried in the United States.
Garcia Luna, who has denied the allegations, headed Mexico’s federal police and then served as its top public security official from 2006 to 2012. His lawyers said the charges were based on lies by criminals who wanted to punish his efforts to fight drugs and get a reduced sentence for themselves by helping prosecutors.
The case had political ramifications on both sides of the border. The testimony conveyed a second-hand claim that former Mexican President Felipe Calderón sought to protect notorious Sinaloa cocaine cartel ringleader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán from a major rival; Calderón called the accusation “absurd” and an “absolute lie”.
Jurors also heard that García Luna had met with high-level US politicians and other officials, who saw him as a key partner in the fight against cartels as the US government embarked on a $1.6 billion campaign. dollars to strengthen law enforcement in Mexico and stop the flow of drugs.
Mexico’s president has announced he will sue lawyer César de Castro, who is defending former Mexican security secretary Genaro García Luna, for suggesting he received bribes from drug traffickers during his his 2006 campaign.
The Americans have not been charged with any wrongdoing, and while suspicion has long swirled around García Luna, the trial did not delve into the extent of knowledge that US officials had about them prior to their arrest in 2019. However, current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has ostensibly suggested that the US government investigate its own law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked with García Luna during the Calderón administration.
A list of former smugglers and former Mexican officials testified that Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in cash from the cartel, met with key traffickers and kept law enforcement at bay.
It was “the best investment they had,” said Sergio “El Grande” Villarreal Barragán, a former federal police officer who worked for the cartels. “We had absolutely no problems with our activities.”
He and other witnesses said that, under the supervision of Garcia Luna, police alerted traffickers to upcoming raids, ensured that cocaine could pass freely through the country, partnered with cartels to attack rivals and returned other favors. A former smuggler said Garcia Luna shared a document reflecting information from US law enforcement about a huge shipment of cocaine seized in Mexico around 2007.
Garcia Luna, 54, did not testify at trial, although his wife spoke up in an apparent effort to portray their property in Mexico as legitimately owned and upper-middle-class, but not luxurious. The couple moved to Miami in 2012 when the Mexican government changed and he became a security consultant.
Lawyers for Garcia Luna pointed out that the prosecutors’ case was based on the testimony of known offenders, with no recordings, messages or documented money trails to corroborate them.
“Nothing supports what these epic killers, torturers, crooks and drug traffickers claimed about Genaro García Luna,” defense attorney César de Castro said in closing arguments.