Mexico’s ex-public security chief sentenced to 38 years in prison for taking cartel bribes

Author of the article:

Associated Press

Larry Neumeister

Published Oct 16, 2024  •  3 minute read

Mexico's Genaro Garcia Luna speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Mexico City, Sept. 3, 2009. Photo by Dario Lopez-mills /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — The man once heralded as the architect of Mexico’s war on drug cartels was sentenced to more than 38 years in a U.S. prison on Wednesday for taking massive bribes to aid drug traffickers.

Article content

Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public security, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating.

Garcia Luna led Mexico’s federal police before he served in a cabinet-level position as the country’s top security official from 2006 to 2012 under then-President Felipe Calderon. At the time, Garcia Luna was hailed as an ally by the U.S. in its fight on drug trafficking.

But prosecutors say that in return for millions of dollars, he provided intelligence about investigations against the cartel, information about rival cartels and the safe passage of massive quantities of drugs.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had asked a judge to order that Genaro Garcia Luna be incarcerated for life, while his lawyers argued that he should spend no more than 20 years behind bars.

Article content

Article content

Garcia Luna, 56, was convicted early last year of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He denied the allegations.

Prosecutors wrote that Garcia Luna’s actions advanced a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American and Mexican citizens.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

“It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant’s crimes, the deaths and addiction he facilitated and his betrayal of the people of Mexico and the United States,” prosecutors wrote. “His crimes demand justice.”

Garcia Luna headed Mexico’s federal police before he served in a cabinet-level position as the country’s top security official from 2006 to 2012 during the administration of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Article content

Garcia Luna was not only considered the architect of Calderon’s bloody war on cartels, but was also hailed as an ally by the U.S. in its fight on drug trafficking. During the trial, photos were shown of Garcia Luna shaking hands with former President Barack Obama and speaking with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John McCain.

But prosecutors say that in return for millions of dollars, Garcia Luna provided intelligence about investigations against the cartel, information about rival cartels and the safe passage of massive quantities of drugs.

Prosecutors said he ensured drug traffickers were notified in advance of raids and sabotaged legitimate police operations aimed at apprehending cartel leaders.

Article content

Drug traffickers were able to ship over 1 million kilograms of cocaine through Mexico and into the United States using planes, trains, trucks and submarines while Garcia Luna held his posts, prosecutors said.

During former Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s trial in the same court in 2018, a former cartel member testified that he personally delivered 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.

Prosecutors also said that Garcia Luna plotted to undo last year’s trial verdict by seeking to bribe or corruptly convince multiple inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to support false allegations that two government witnesses communicated via contraband cellular phones in advance of the trial.

Article content

In their appeal for leniency, Garcia Luna’s lawyers wrote to a judge that Garcia Luna and his family have suffered public attacks throughout the nearly five years he has been imprisoned.

“He has lost everything he worked for — his reputation, all of his assets, the institutions that he championed, even the independence of the Mexican judiciary — and he has been powerless to control any of it,” they wrote.

“Just in the past five years he has lost two siblings, learned of the disability of another due to COVID-19 complications and the imposition of an arrest warrant against her, and learned that his youngest sister was jailed because of her relationship to him,” they added.

In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case on Tuesday, saying: “The big issue here is how someone who was awarded by United States agencies, who ex-President Calderon said wonderful things about his security secretary, today is prisoner in the United States because it’s shown that he was tied to drug trafficking.”

Article content