The person as soon as heralded because the architect of Mexico’s battle on drug cartels was sentenced to greater than 38 years in a U.S. jail on Wednesday (October 16, 2024) 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 tens of millions 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 the US.
At his sentencing listening to earlier than a federal decide in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to keep up his innocence and stated the case in opposition to him was primarily based on false info from criminals and the Mexican authorities.
“I’ve a agency respect for the regulation,” he stated 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 battle on drug trafficking.
However U.S. prosecutors stated that in return for tens of millions of {dollars}, he supplied intelligence about investigations in opposition to the cartel, details about rival gangs and the secure passage of huge portions of medicine.
After the sentencing, Mr. Calderón stated through the social platform X that he respects the courtroom’s resolution however he by no means had “verifiable proof” of García Luna’s felony actions. Mr. Calderón stated taking up the cartels “was some of the troublesome choices of my life. However I’d 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 stated, in Spanish, “Calderon did know,” whereas others brandished indicators denouncing his political celebration.
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 Decide Brian Cogan stated he wasn’t moved by previous accolades that García Luna acquired for his work within the battle on medicine.
“That was your cowl,” Justice Cogan stated 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 yr.’”
In addition to the sentence of 38 years and 4 months, the decide imposed a $2 million wonderful.
Throughout the trial, pictures have been proven of García Luna shaking palms with former President Barack Obama and talking with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John McCain.
However prosecutors stated García Luna secretly superior a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted within the deaths of hundreds of American and Mexican residents. He ensured that drug traffickers have been notified prematurely of raids and sabotaged professional police operations geared toward apprehending cartel leaders, they stated.
Drug traffickers have been capable of ship over 1 million kilograms of cocaine by means of Mexico and into the US utilizing planes, trains, vans and submarines whereas García Luna held his posts, prosecutors stated.
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 a minimum of $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. Legal professional 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 palms,” Komatireddy stated.
Prosecutors additionally stated García Luna plotted to undo final yr’s verdict by searching for to bribe or corruptly persuade a number of inmates on the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn to assist false allegations that two authorities witnesses communicated through contraband mobile telephones prematurely of the trial.
García Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, stated the protection intends to enchantment the sentence. He stated 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 the whole lot. All that continues to be is his fantastic household,” Mr. Castro stated.
In Mexico, newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case Tuesday, saying: “The massive situation right here is how somebody who was awarded by United States companies, who ex-President Calderón stated fantastic issues about his safety secretary, right now is prisoner in the US as a result of it’s proven that he was tied to drug trafficking.”
García Luna’s arrest and conviction turned a political cudgel that the governing celebration of Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, used on this yr’s Mexican presidential election in opposition to Calderón’s weakened Nationwide Motion Get together. They sought to color García Luna because the poster youngster of corruption and Calderón as the person liable for hovering violence from the drug battle.
López Obrador and now Sheinbaum turned away from direct confrontation with the cartels, as an alternative specializing in what they contemplate root causes of violence, resembling poverty. However the brand new technique has didn’t 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 in opposition to Cienfuegos and protested till the U.S. authorities dropped the costs. He was returned to Mexico, the place he was promptly cleared and launched.
Revealed – October 17, 2024 01:06 pm IST
