- Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public safety, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking thousands and thousands of {dollars} in bribes to guard the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He’s the highest-level Mexican authorities official to be convicted in america.
- At his sentencing listening to earlier than a federal decide in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna maintained his innocence and mentioned the case towards him was based mostly on false info from criminals and the Mexican authorities.
- García Luna was sentenced to 38 years and 4 months in jail and a $2 million high-quality.
The person as soon as heralded because the architect of Mexico’s conflict on drug cartels was sentenced to greater than 38 years in a U.S. jail on Wednesday for taking huge bribes to help drug traffickers.
Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public safety, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking thousands and thousands of {dollars} in bribes to guard the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He’s the highest-level Mexican authorities official to be convicted in america.
At his sentencing listening to earlier than a federal decide in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to take care of his innocence and mentioned the case towards him was based mostly on false info from criminals and the Mexican authorities.
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“I’ve a agency respect for the regulation,” he mentioned in Spanish. “I’ve not dedicated these crimes.”
García Luna, 56, led Mexico’s federal police earlier than he served in a cabinet-level place as the highest safety official from 2006 to 2012 underneath then-President Felipe Calderón. On the time, García Luna was hailed as an ally by the U.S. in its struggle towards drug trafficking.
However U.S. prosecutors mentioned that in return for thousands and thousands of {dollars}, he offered intelligence about investigations towards the cartel, details about rival gangs and the secure passage of huge portions of medication.
Mexico’s Genaro Garcia Luna speaks throughout a ceremony to designate June 2 as Federal Police Day in Mexico Metropolis on June 2, 2011. (AP Photograph/Alexandre Meneghini, File)
After the sentencing, Calderón mentioned by way of the social platform X that he respects the courtroom’s resolution, however he by no means had “verifiable proof” of García Luna’s prison actions. Calderón mentioned taking up the cartels “was one of the crucial troublesome selections of my life. However I might do it once more, as a result of it’s the proper factor to do.”
Earlier outdoors the courthouse, a bunch of about 15 protesters celebrated the decision. Some held a banner that mentioned, in Spanish, “Calderon did know,” whereas others brandished indicators denouncing his political get together.
Prosecutors had requested for a life sentence. García Luna’s attorneys had argued that he ought to get not more than 20 years.
U.S. District Choose Brian Cogan mentioned he wasn’t moved by previous accolades that García Luna obtained for his work within the conflict on medicine.
“That was your cowl,” Cogan mentioned earlier than imposing the sentence. “You might be responsible of those crimes, sir. You may’t parade these phrases and say, ‘I’m police officer of the 12 months.’”
Apart from the sentence of 38 years and 4 months, the decide imposed a $2 million high-quality.
In the course of the trial, pictures had been proven of García Luna shaking arms with former President Barack Obama and talking with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John McCain.
However prosecutors mentioned García Luna secretly superior a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted within the deaths of 1000’s of American and Mexican residents. He ensured that drug traffickers had been notified upfront of raids and sabotaged reliable police operations geared toward apprehending cartel leaders, they mentioned.
Drug traffickers had been capable of ship over 1 million kilograms of cocaine via Mexico and into america utilizing planes, trains, vans and submarines whereas García Luna held his posts, prosecutors mentioned.
Throughout former Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s trial in the identical courtroom in 2018, a former cartel member testified that he personally delivered not less than $6 million in payoffs to García Luna and that cartel members agreed to pool as much as $50 million to pay for his safety.
“He enabled the cartel. He protected the cartel. He was the cartel,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Saritha Komatireddy advised the decide Wednesday.
García Luna enabled a corrupt system that allowed violent cartels to thrive and distribute medicine that killed multitudes of individuals, she added.
“It could not have been the defendant pulling the set off, however he has blood on his arms,” Komatireddy mentioned.
Prosecutors additionally mentioned García Luna plotted to undo final 12 months’s verdict by searching for to bribe or corruptly persuade a number of inmates on the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn to help false allegations that two authorities witnesses communicated by way of contraband mobile telephones upfront of the trial.
García Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, mentioned the protection intends to enchantment the sentence. He mentioned his shopper is somebody who “has served his nation” and has now misplaced his cash, his popularity in addition to insurance policies he championed in Mexico.
“He has misplaced near every little thing. All that is still is his fantastic household,” de Castro mentioned.
In Mexico, newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case Tuesday, saying: “The large concern right here is how somebody who was awarded by United States businesses, who ex-President Calderón mentioned fantastic issues about his safety secretary, at the moment is prisoner in america as a result of it’s proven that he was tied to drug trafficking.”
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García Luna’s arrest and conviction turned a political cudgel that the governing get together of Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, used on this 12 months’s Mexican presidential election towards Calderón’s weakened Nationwide Motion Celebration. They sought to color García Luna because the poster baby of corruption and Calderón as the person chargeable for hovering violence from the drug conflict.
López Obrador and now Sheinbaum turned away from direct confrontation with the cartels, as a substitute specializing in what they take into account root causes of violence, similar to poverty. However the brand new technique has did not considerably decrease the extent of violence.
López Obrador had a really totally different response in 2020 when U.S. authorities arrested former Mexican Protection Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos for allegedly colluding with a drug cartel. In that case, López Obrador accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating proof towards Cienfuegos and protested till the U.S. authorities dropped the fees. He was returned to Mexico, the place he was promptly cleared and launched.
