Mexico’s former public security chief sentenced to more than 38 years in US prison for taking bribes from cartels

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had asked a judge to jail Genaro García Luna for life, while his lawyers argued he should not spend more than 20 years behind bars.

García Luna, 56, was convicted early last year of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel he supposedly fought. He denied the accusations.

Prosecutors wrote that García Luna’s actions furthered a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of thousands of U.S. and Mexican citizens.

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

García Luna led Mexico’s federal police before serving in a cabinet-level position as the country’s top security official from 2006 to 2012 during the administration of former Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

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

But prosecutors say that in exchange for millions of dollars, García Luna provided intelligence on investigations against the cartel, information on rival cartels and the safe passage of vast quantities of drugs.

Prosecutors said he ensured drug traffickers received advance notice of raids and sabotaged legitimate police operations aimed at arresting cartel leaders.

Drug traffickers were able to transport more than 1 million kilos of cocaine through Mexico to the United States by planes, trains, trucks and submarines while García Luna held his post, prosecutors said.

During the trial of former Sinaloa queen Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the same court in 2018, a former cartel member testified that he personally handed over at least $6 million in payouts to García Luna, and that cartel members agreed to pay up to $50 million bundle to pay. for his protection.

Prosecutors also said García Luna plotted to overturn last year’s sentence by attempting to bribe or corruptly persuade multiple inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to support false allegations that two government witnesses were convicted prior to the process via smuggled mobile phones.

In their request for leniency, García Luna’s lawyers wrote to a judge that García Luna and his family have faced public attacks during the nearly five years he has been in prison.

“He has lost everything he worked for – his reputation, all his assets, the institutions 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 another’s disability due to COVID-19 complications and the issuance of a warrant for her arrest, and learned that his youngest sister was imprisoned for her relationship with him. they added.

In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case on Tuesday, saying: “The big problem here is how someone who has been rewarded by US agencies, and who has said wonderful things to ex-President Calderón about his security secretary, is today imprisoned in the prison. United States because it has been proven that he was involved in drug trafficking.”

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Associated Press writer Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press