The exceptional trial of a former Mexican minister for cocaine trafficking to the United States opened Tuesday in New York, Genaro Garcia Luna being a former figure in the war against drugs in his country and who was involved in the case of the Frenchwoman Florence Cassez in the 2000s.
This Minister of Public Security in the government of President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) was arrested on December 9, 2019 in Dallas, Texas, accused of having accepted bribes to protect the Mexican cartel of Sinaloa and to be 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 Central and South American drug cartels who take advantage of the complicity of local ministers to flood the United States market.
Garcia Luna’s attorney, Cesar de Castro, arrived in Brooklyn federal court where a lone protester held a sign urging the defendant to ‘not cover up anyone’, including former Mexican president ‘Calderon (who) knew’ .
It was the same Brooklyn court that sentenced former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to life in prison in 2019. His sidekick, Colombian Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel”, is awaiting trial in the same New York jurisdiction, while former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has denied all drug trafficking charges brought against him by the Manhattan Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
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 began with perilous jury selection and is expected to last two months, is the allegation that he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to overlook tons of cartel drugs. de Guzman sent to the United States from 2001 to 2012.
Garcia Luna would even have been an accomplice of the Sinaloa group from January 2001 when he entered and then piloted until 2005 the Intelligence Agency 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 he was actually collaborating with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to “fight Mexican drug cartels”.
Unrelated to this trial, Garcia Luna is also accused of having co-organized and staged the December 2005 arrest of Frenchwoman Florence Cassez and her then companion, Israel Vallarta. The couple had been accused of being part of an organized crime gang.
