Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s former top law enforcement official in charge of waging war against the country’s notorious narco terrorist organizations, was convicted in U.S. federal court on Tuesday of working with the very organizations that he was supposed to be fighting.
Garcia Luna, who, as Secretary of Public Security, had direct control over Mexico’s Federal Police Force, was convicted in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn on all counts of a superseding indictment that charged him with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise that includes six drug-related violations, international cocaine distribution conspiracy, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to import cocaine, and making false statements, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. Garcia Luna faces 20 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors proved at trial that Garcia Luna used his official position to assist the country’s most prolific and notorious drug cartel: the Sinaloa cartel. Garcia Luna sold out his country for millions of dollars in cash payments from the cartel. His actions assisting the cartel included facilitating safe passage for the Cartel’s drug shipments, providing sensitive law enforcement information about investigations into the Cartel, and helping the Cartel attack rival drug cartels, thereby facilitating the importation of multi-ton quantities of cocaine and other drugs into the United States, the DOJ said.
Convicted narco-traffickers testified against Garcia Luna during trial, revealing that he worked for them for nearly the entire time that he was in charge of what The New York Times described as Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI. The narco-traffickers confirmed that they paid Garcia Luna sums of cash as large as $14 million in exchange for his services.
“Garcia Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels,” stated Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “It is unconscionable that the defendant betrayed his duty as Secretary of Public Security by greedily accepting millions of dollars in bribe money that was stained by the blood of Cartel wars and drug-related battles in the streets of the United States and Mexico, in exchange for protecting those murderers and traffickers he was solemnly sworn to investigate.”
The report noted that one topic rarely was mentioned during trial: What U.S. officials knew about Garcia Luna’s criminal activities while he worked closely with U.S. officials, including top Obama administration officials like former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Former Democrat President Bill Clinton’s administration struck a deal with the Sinaloa cartel in 2000 that allowed the cartel to smuggle billions of dollars into the U.S. in exchange for selling out rival cartels.