The Mexican former minister Genaro Garcia Luna, once an architect of the so-called war on drugs in his country, he was found guilty yesterday Tuesday by the American judiciary of corruption and complicity in the trafficking of cocaine from Mexico to the United States.

The Mexican former minister is now at risk of even being sentenced to life in prison (20 years to life in prison). His sentence is expected to be announced on June 27.

He is the highest-ranking former Mexican official to go on trial in New York, where federal justice is at war with Central and South American drug cartels, which benefit from the cooperation of local officials to flood the US market with drugs.

Twelve jurors in a Brooklyn court found the one-time Secretary of Public Security under President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) guilty of five counts, including bribery of millions of dollars to protect the Sinaloa cartel and involvement in trafficking 53 tons of cocaine from Mexico to the US between 2001 and 2012.

“Justice has been served,” commented with satisfaction on Twitter the representative of the Mexican presidency, Jesus Ramirez.

Before becoming a minister, Mr. García Luna, an engineer, was from 2001 to 2005 a police officer and the head of an intelligence agency that works against corruption and organized crime.

Unperturbed

His wife and their two children were in the courtroom when the verdict was read against the former minister, who appeared unfazed.

After several days of jury deliberations and a month-long trial, Mr. Garcia Luna, who didn’t say a word at the hearings, he is now a “convicted felon,” the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office said.

Mr. Garcia Luna, “once at the head of law enforcement in Mexico, will live the rest of his days as a traitor to his country and the dedicated law enforcement forces who risk their lives to dismantle the drug cartels ,” U.S. Attorney Brian Peace summarized in a press release issued by his office.

Repentant “criminals”

From mid-January to mid-February, the prosecution called 26 witnesses to testify, including nine accused or convicted drug traffickers who were extradited to the US to stand trial and cooperated with the judiciary to secure lighter sentences.
The prosecution invited the jury to listen to these “repentant criminals” and judge Garcia Luna “guilty”: the 54-year-old was, he stressed, a man “with two faces”, a minister in charge of combating drug trafficking who worked closely with Washington from on the one hand, “partner in crime” of the Sinaloa cartel on the other.

In 2019, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was sentenced to life in prison in the same court in Brooklyn. His Colombian associate Dario Antonio Usuga, or “Otoniel,” is also on trial in this New York court, as is former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Genaro Garcia Lula was arrested on December 9, 2019 in Dallas, Texas (South). Remanded in custody since then, he was accused of taking millions in bribes to turn a blind eye to drug trafficking by the cartels.

Cesar de Castro’s lawyer, who throughout the trial talked about the “absence of evidence”, without convincing, promised yesterday, surrounded by supporters of his client and opponents of former President Calderon, that his client will “continue the fight (…) to clear his name”. He has not officially announced that he will appeal.