A former Mexican minister, who led his country’s drug war and was involved in the case of Frenchwoman Florence Cassez in the 2000s, will be tried in New York for drug trafficking between his country and the United States.
Genaro Garcia Luna, Minister of Public Security in the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012), was arrested on December 9, 2019 in Dallas, Texas, accused of accepting bribes to protect the Sinaloa Cartel and involved in trafficking at least 53 tons of cocaine to the United States.
The 54-year-old is the most senior Mexican official to be brought to justice by federal prosecutors in New York, at war with drug cartels that take advantage of the complicity of local ministers to flood the United States market.
Cartel of “El Chapo”
Former leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 by federal court in Brooklyn.
His sidekick, the Colombian Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel”, is awaiting trial in the same New York jurisdiction, while the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez has denied all the charges of drug trafficking brought against him by the Manhattan prosecutors.
In October 2020, Mr. Garcia Luna pleaded not guilty to five counts before the American courts. He faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, up to life.
At the heart of his trial, which begins Tuesday with jury selection and is expected to last two months, is the allegation that he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to overlook tons of drugs from Joaquin’s cartel. Guzman sent to the United States from 2001 to 2012.
Garcia Luna was even an accomplice of the Sinaloa cartel in January 2001 when he was piloting an intelligence service in his country, according to American justice.
Suitcases of tickets
During Guzman’s 2019 trial, a former member of his cartel claimed to have given Garcia Luna suitcases of tickets – at least $6 million – three times at a restaurant in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
In December 2020, Mexico had asked the United States for the extradition of its former minister for embezzlement of public funds, but it will be necessary to wait until he is tried and sentenced in New York for a possible agreement between the two neighbors of America North.
Genaro Garcia Luna, a mechanical engineer, led the Mexican Intelligence Agency from 2001 to 2005 in the fight against corruption and organized crime.
Then, under President Calderon, he became Minister of Public Security, controlling the federal police in the war against drug gangs in Mexico.
His entire defense will revolve around the idea that the former minister was in fact collaborating with the American anti-drug agency (DEA) to “combat Mexican drug cartels”.
Mexican-Cuban journalist Peniley Ramirez, who has written a book and podcast on Garcia Luna, said Mexico “expects a lot from what this trial will reveal about corruption (in the country) in general.” She felt that “not enough was said about what the DEA knew about Garcia Luna’s alleged criminal activities”.
Unrelated to his trial in New York, Garcia Luna is also accused of having co-organized the arrest in December 2005 of the Frenchwoman Florence Cassez and her then companion, Israel Vallarta. The couple had been accused of being part of an organized crime gang.
The Frenchwoman was sentenced in 2008 to 96 years in prison for kidnapping and forcible confinement. Her sentence was reduced on appeal to 60 years in 2009, and on January 23, 2013, she was released after her conviction was overturned by Mexico’s Supreme Court.
The affair had provoked a diplomatic quarrel between the Mexico of President Calderon and the France of his counterpart at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Source – Agencies
