The man who was once hailed as the mastermind of Mexico’s drug war was given a more than 38-year sentence in a US jail on Wednesday after accepting large bribes to help drug traffickers.
Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s former director of public safety, was found guilty by a New York judge in 2023 of accepting millions of dollars in money to support the violent Sinaloa gang he was purporting to be fighting. He is the highest-level standard in the Mexican government to have been found guilty in the United States.
Garcia Luna defended his ignorance at his sentencing hearing before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Wednesday, claiming that the government’s prosecution had been based on false data from thieves.
” I have a strong appreciation for the law”, he said in Spanish. ” I have never committed these crimes”.
Garcia Luna, 56, led Mexico’s national police before he served in a cabinet-level position as the top safety national from 2006 to 2012 under then-President Felipe Calderon. Garcia Luna was praised by the US at the time for helping to combat drug trafficking.
However, US prosecutors claimed that he offered millions of dollars in exchange for information about rival criminals, drug trafficking, and secure section of sizable amounts of money.
After the punishment, Calderon said via the social system X that he respects the court’s choice but he never had “verifiable information” of Garcia Luna’s unlawful activities. According to Calderon, choosing to join the organizations “was one of the most challenging decisions of my life.” But I would do it again because it is morally correct to do it.
Earlier outside the courtroom, a group of about 15 activists celebrated the ruling. Some held a symbol that said, in Spanish,” Calderon did know”, while another brandished symptoms denouncing his political party.
Lawyers had asked for a life sentence. Garcia Luna’s attorneys had argued that his sentence should be capped at 20 times.
Garcia Luna’s previous accomplishments, according to US District Judge Brian Cogan, did n’t move him because of them.
” That was your include”, Cogan said before imposing the word. ” You are guilty of these acts, dear. You the n’t festival these words and say,’ I’m police commander of the year.'”
Besides the sentence of 38 years and four months, the judge imposed a$ 2 million fine.
Garcia Luna was photographed speaking with previous secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former senator John McCain while holding hands with former president Barack Obama during the test.
However, lawyers claim Garcia Luna had conspired to sell drugs and recruit people to commit the murder of thousands of Americans and Mexicans. According to them, he made sure drug traffickers were informed of raids and sabotaged genuine police operations intended to apprehend gang leaders.
While Garcia Luna held his messages, medication traffickers were able to transport more than 1 million pounds of heroin through Mexico and the United States using airplanes, trains, cars, and submarines, according to prosecutors.
A former cartel member testified that he personally paid at least$ 6 million in payoffs to Garcia Luna and that cartel members agreed to pool up to$ 50 million to pay for his protection during the trial of former Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin” El Chapo” Guzman in the same court in 2018.
” He enabled the syndicate. He protected the gang. He was the cartel”, Assistant US Attorney Saritha Komatireddy told the judge Wednesday.
Garcia Luna, she continued, helped a corrupt system that made violent organizations thrive and sell drugs that had killed countless individuals.
” It may not have been the accused pulling the trigger, but he has heart on his palms”, Komatireddy said.
In addition, the prosecution claimed that Garcia Luna plotted to overturn the jury’s decision from last year by attempting to pay or defraud several Brooklyn inmates to back up allegations that two government witnesses had exchanged information with each other via illegal mobile phones prior to the trial.
Garcia Luna’s attorney, Cesar de Castro, said the defence intends to charm the word. He claimed that his customer is a person who “has served his country” and has since lost his money, status, and laws he supported in Mexico.
” He has lost near to everyone. All that remains is his great home”, de Castro said.
The big deal is how someone who was awarded by American companies, who ex-President Calderon said great things about his safety minister, is now imprisoned in the United States because it has been demonstrated that he was tied to pharmaceutical trafficking, said recently inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum in a few words on the situation.
Garcia Luna’s arrest and conviction served as Sheinbaum’s and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s social proxies in the upcoming Latino presidential election against Calderon’s weak National Action Party. They aimed to portray Calderon as the front person responsible for the rise in medication violence and Garcia Luna as the banner child of fraud.
Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum turned their attention away from direct clash with the organizations and instead concentrated on what they believe are the main causes of violence, such as hunger. However, the novel approach has failed to substantially lower the level of crime.
When former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos was detained by US government for supposedly colluding with a drug gang, Lopez Obrador had a really unique effect in 2020. Lopez Obrador protested until the US government dropped the accusations in that case against Cienfuegos and accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating evidence. He was returned to Mexico, where he was promptly cleared and released.
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Mexico’s ex-public security chief sentenced to 38-plus years in US for taking cartel bribes
Genaro Garcia Luna of Mexico speaks during a meeting to identify June 2 as the Mexican equivalent of Federal Police Day on June 2, 2011. ( AP )
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