Former Mexican security minister Genaro García Luna is on trial in Brooklyn, accused of taking bribes from ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán's Sinaloa drug cartel.
Just a few days into the trial of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a witness dropped a bombshell allegation: A Sinaloa cartel associate testified that he had personally given Mexico’s top drug cop briefcases full of cash — millions in bribes to let the cartel operate with impunity.
“We knew Chapo was dirty,” Soriano said, “but Chapo is nothing but a peasant from rural Sinaloa.” García Luna, by contrast, was a powerful public official who held the trust of Mexico’s president from 2006 to 2012, Felipe Calderón, who mobilized the military and federal police in what became a bloody and more than decadelong battle against drug cartels.
With a career spanning three decades, García Luna has intimate knowledge of the drug war in Mexico and ties to the country’s administrations going back to the early 2000s. And he had a particularly close relationship with the DEA and FBI from the latter part of President George W. Bush‘s second administration through President Obama’s first, said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University.
And with the 2024 U.S. presidential election in sight, experts say the United States doesn’t hold a lot of leverage to pressure Mexican authorities to change that, considering how much Washington relies on Mexico City to control U.S.-bound migration through Mexico.As minister of public security from 2006 to 2012, García Luna is widely regarded as the architect of Calderón’s controversial war on the drug cartels.
Calderón’s declared war on the drug cartels shattered old alliances and drove drug lords to fight over the territory. There were high-profile arrests, but they were mostly from rival organizations such as the Zetas or the Beltrán Leyva organization. Rumors of government favoritism toward the Sinaloa cartel grew louder.narcomantas
Officials said the accusations were an attempt by Valdez to gain privileges while in prison; García Luna remained untouched. When Calderón’s term ended in 2012, García Luna fell out of the public eye. Married with two children, he was granted permanent residency in the United States and was soon a routine guest at conferences hosted by American universities.
But prosecutors have telegraphed in court filings that they expect to present numerous witnesses — including former high-ranking members of the Sinaloa cartel — to testify about the bribes García Luna is accused of accepting.
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