The former head of Mexico’s security forces, Genaro García Luna, has been accused of helping the country’s notorious Sinaloa cartel flourish with impunity and flooding US cities with cocaine, becoming the highest-ranking government official to be convicted of drug-trafficking ties.
A jury in Brooklyn returned the verdict on Tuesday, after a four-week trial in which members of the cartel once run by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán testified that García Luna received millions of dollars in bribes from the same criminal organization he was accused of. to help bring them to justice.
Prosecutors say the protection García Luna gave the cartel allowed him to smuggle tens of thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the U.S., and move it unhindered into Mexico.
The cartel members were even given law enforcement uniforms and credentials, as well as police vehicles, US prosecutors said.
“García Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now spend the rest of his life after being exposed as a traitor to his country,” U.S. attorney Breon Peace said after the verdict.
“It is unconscionable that the defendant betrayed his duty . . . by greedily accepting millions of dollars in bribes stained in the blood of cartel wars and drug-related wars,” Peace added.
In closing statements last week, assistant US attorney Saritha Komatireddy said García Luna controlled Mexico’s “roads, airports and ports” and thus helped the Sinaloa cartel become the “FedEx of cocaine”, moving the drug across North America using trains, ships, containers and ships bye
García Luna, who was then Mexico’s minister of public security and faced the country’s war on drugs during Felipe Calderón’s administration, was found guilty of five charges, including distribution of cocaine and making false statements to the US government.
The 54-year-old now faces a minimum sentence of 20 years, and a maximum of life in prison. A sentencing date is set for June 27.
García Luna was arrested in Dallas in 2019, after evidence presented in court that led to El Chapo’s conviction showed his involvement with the Sinaloa cartel. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
US prosecutors called several former members of the cartel, including Sergio “El Grande” Villarreal Barragán and one-time accountant of the Sinaloa criminal organization Jesús “El Rey” Zambada, who testified that they oversaw millions of dollars in cash given to García Luna in a Mexico City restaurant.
“You heard directly from the people who paid him,” prosecutors told jurors in closing arguments last week, adding that the defendant “helped capture and kill rivals of the Sinaloa cartel”.
García Luna’s counsel said the witnesses were criminals responsible for “horrible crimes” who “witnessed to save themselves” in exchange for a better sentence or their families would be allowed to join the US.