The former head of the fight against drugs in Mexico, Genaro Garcia Luna, was sentenced on Wednesday October 16, 2024 by the American justice system to more than 38 years of imprisonment for drug trafficking and corruption, for his links with the powerful Sinaloa cartel .
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The former minister of Mexico 56-year-old, who was found guilty in February 2023 and incarcerated in New York, was sentenced to “ 460 months in prison and two million dollars fine » for having lent a hand for a decade to the formidable Mexican cartel “ in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes “, announced the federal prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn.
He is the highest-ranking Mexican official to have been tried by American justice, in war against the drug cartels of Central and South America who take advantage of the complicity of local ministers to flood the North American market. Several Sinaloa cartel kingpins are currently in prison in UNITED STATES.
“ The prison sentence imposed today on Génaro Garcia Luna is a measure of justice and law. He betrayed the trust of the public and the people he was sworn to protect. This resulted in the importation of more than a million kilograms of deadly drugs into our country and violence here and in Mexico. “, thundered federal prosecutor Breon Peace. “ After years of drug trafficking and fraud, Garcia Luna will spend nearly 40 years where he belongs: in federal prison », insisted the magistrate of one of the most important prosecutors in the United States in terms of repression of international drug trafficking.
The administrator of the American drug agency (DEA) Anne Milgram also welcomed that “ sentence against former Mexican public security minister sends clear message to corrupt leaders around the world who use their positions of power to help cartels “. “ No matter how powerful you are, you will not escape justice “, insisted the American official, quoted in a press release, noting that Mr. Garcia Luna “ had accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel to get millions of kilos of cocaine onto the streets of the United States “.
Garcia Luna, minister and partner of the Sinaloa Cartel
In February 2023, a popular jury of the Brooklyn court ruled that this former minister of Mexican President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) was guilty of all five countsincluding that of having received millions of dollars to protect the Sinaloa cartel and of being directly involved in the trafficking of tens of tons of cocaine from Mexico to the United States from 2001 to 2012.
Before becoming a minister, Génaro Garcia Luna, a mechanical engineer by trade, was from 2001 to 2005 a police officer and head of the intelligence agency against corruption and organized crime.
During his trial more than a year and a half ago, the prosecution called 26 prosecution witnesses, including nine accused or convicted of drug trafficking, extradited to the United States to be tried and collaborate with the justice in order to obtain lighter sentences. The magistrates had accused Génaro Garcia Luna of having “ two faces “: an anti-drug minister who collaborated with Washington on the one hand and a ” partner in crime » of the Sinaloa Cartel on the other.
The conviction of Mr. Garcia Luna comes against a backdrop of an outbreak of violence in Sinaloa attributed to a conflict between the sons of “ El Chapo » and those close to“ El Mayo ». Both detained in the United States. Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has just left office, recently accused the United States of being behind the bloody feud.
Also readMexico: the Sinaloa cartel torn apart by open war, fifteen dead