Ex-Mexico Drug Czar Convicted In U.S. Of Taking Bribes From Cartel

A former Mexican law enforcement official once in charge of his country's fight against drug traffickers was convicted on Tuesday on U.S. charges he took millions of dollars in bribes from the infamous Sinaloa cartel.

Federal prosecutors in the New York City borough of Brooklyn said Genaro Garcia Luna accepted bribes from the cartel once run by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in exchange for protection from arrest, safe passage for cocaine shipments and tipoffs about forthcoming law enforcement operations.

On its third day of deliberations, the jury found Garcia Luna guilty on all five counts he faced, which included continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to distribute cocaine in the United States.

Garcia Luna is one of the highest-ranking Mexican officials ever accused of ties to drug trafficking. He led Mexico's Federal Investigation Agency from 2001 to 2005 and was public security minister for six years until 2012.

He worked closely with U.S. counter-narcotics and intelligence agencies as part of former President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on cartels.

During a four-week trial, jurors heard from nine convicted cartel members who agreed to cooperate with prosecutors' investigation and testified about the bribes Garcia Luna received. Saritha Komatireddy, a prosecutor, told jurors the cartel could not have shipped drugs without his complicity.

"These leaders paid the defendant bribes for protection - and they got what they paid for," Komatireddy said in her closing argument on Feb. 15, referring to Guzman and two other top-ranking Sinaloa cartel figures.

Garcia Luna, she said, "used his official government position to make millions of dollars for himself from the people he was supposed to prosecute."

Garcia Luna, who moved to the United States after leaving office and was arrested in Texas in 2019, had pleaded not guilty.

His lawyers argued that prosecutors relied on inconsistent narratives from convicted violent criminals who were implicating him to get revenge on the man who arrested them and in a bid to lower their U.S. prison sentences.

Cesar de Castro, a defense lawyer, portrayed Garcia Luna as a hardworking family man and told jurors in his closing argument that his client's accusers had "incredible motives to lie."

Jesus Ramirez, a spokesman for current Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said in a tweet, "Justice has come for the former squire of @FelipeCalderon. The crimes against our people will never be forgotten."

Following Garcia Luna's arrest, Calderon expressed profound shock and said he was unaware of what his former security minister is alleged to have done.

Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 following his conviction in Brooklyn on drug trafficking and murder conspiracy charges. He is held at a high-security "Supermax" prison in Colorado.