Genaro Garcia Luna, a former Mexican presidential cabinet member, has been convicted in a US federal court of taking enormous bribes to protect the violent drug cartels he was tasked with combatting. After three days of deliberation, the anonymous jury found Garcia Luna guilty on charges including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, cocaine distribution and cocaine conspiracy.
The case had significant political implications on both sides of the border. Testimony aired a secondhand claim that former Mexican President Felipe Calderon sought to shield notorious Sinaloa cocaine cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman against a major rival. Calderon denied the allegation, calling it “absurd” and “an absolute lie”. The trial also revealed that Garcia Luna had met with high-level US politicians and other officials who considered him a key partner in Washington’s $1.6bn push to beef up Mexican law enforcement and stem the flow of drugs.
Ex-smugglers and former Mexican officials testified that Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in cartel cash, met with major traffickers and kept law enforcement at bay. They said that, on his watch, police tipped traffickers about upcoming raids, ensured cocaine could pass freely through the country, colluded with cartels to raid rivals and did other favours. One ex-smuggler even said Garcia Luna shared a document that reflected information from US law enforcement about a huge cocaine shipment seized in Mexico around 2007.
Garcia Luna’s lawyers emphasised that prosecutors’ case relied on testimony from admitted lawbreakers, without recordings, messages or a documented money trail to corroborate their accusations. His wife took the stand in an attempt to portray their assets in Mexico as legitimately acquired and upper-middle-class but not lavish.
The trial provided glimpses of narco-extravagances such as a private zoo with a lion, a hippo, white tigers and more. It also heard about tonnes of cocaine moving through Latin America in shipping containers, go-fast boats, private jets, planes, trains and even submarines. There were horrific reminders of the extraordinary violence those drugs fueled, including cartel killings and kidnappings, police officers being slaughtered and drug-world rivals being dismembered, skinned and dangled from bridges.
Garcia Luna was arrested after testimony about his alleged corruption emerged at Guzman’s high-profile trial about four years ago in the same New York courtroom. He faces various Mexican arrest warrants and charges relating to government technology contracts, prison contracting and the bungled US “Fast and Furious” investigation. The Mexican government has also filed a civil suit against Garcia Luna and his alleged associates and businesses in Florida, seeking to recover $700m Mexico claims he garnered through corruption.
Garcia Luna is set to be sentenced on June 27 and faces a potential sentencing range of 20 years to life in prison. Current Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has suggested Washington should investigate its own law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked with Garcia Luna during Calderon’s administration. Lopez Obrador has called Garcia Luna corrupt but noted it was up to the jury to decide whether he was guilty.