The person as soon as heralded because the architect of Mexico’s conflict on drug cartels was sentenced to greater than 38 years in a U.S. jail on Wednesday (October 16, 2024) for taking large bribes to help drug traffickers.

Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public safety, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes to guard the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He’s the highest-level Mexican authorities official to be convicted in america.

At his sentencing listening to earlier than a federal choose in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to take care of his innocence and stated the case towards him was based mostly on false data from criminals and the Mexican authorities.

“I’ve a agency respect for the legislation,” he stated in Spanish. “I’ve not dedicated these crimes.”

García Luna, 56, led Mexico’s federal police earlier than he served in a cabinet-level place as the highest safety official from 2006 to 2012 below then-President Felipe Calderón. On the time, García Luna was hailed as an ally by the U.S. in its struggle on drug trafficking.

However U.S. prosecutors stated that in return for tens of millions of {dollars}, he offered intelligence about investigations towards the cartel, details about rival gangs and the secure passage of large portions of medicine.

After the sentencing, Mr. Calderón stated by way of the social platform X that he respects the court docket’s choice however he by no means had “verifiable proof” of García Luna’s prison actions. Mr. Calderón stated taking over the cartels “was one of the troublesome selections of my life. However I’d do it once more, as a result of it’s the proper factor to do.”

Earlier outdoors the courthouse, a bunch of about 15 protesters celebrated the decision. Some held a banner that stated, in Spanish, “Calderon did know,” whereas others brandished indicators denouncing his political celebration.

Prosecutors had requested for a life sentence. García Luna’s attorneys had argued that he ought to get not more than 20 years.

U.S. District Choose Brian Cogan stated he wasn’t moved by previous accolades that García Luna acquired for his work within the conflict on medication.

“That was your cowl,” Justice Cogan stated earlier than imposing the sentence. “You’re responsible of those crimes, sir. You possibly can’t parade these phrases and say, ‘I’m police officer of the 12 months.’”

In addition to the sentence of 38 years and 4 months, the choose imposed a $2 million high quality.

In the course of the trial, pictures have been proven of García Luna shaking palms with former President Barack Obama and talking with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John McCain.

However prosecutors stated García Luna secretly superior a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted within the deaths of 1000’s of American and Mexican residents. He ensured that drug traffickers have been notified prematurely of raids and sabotaged respectable police operations aimed toward apprehending cartel leaders, they stated.

Drug traffickers have been in a position to ship over 1 million kilograms of cocaine by means of Mexico and into america utilizing planes, trains, vans and submarines whereas García Luna held his posts, prosecutors stated.

Throughout former Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s trial in the identical court docket in 2018, a former cartel member testified that he personally delivered at the very least $6 million in payoffs to García Luna and that cartel members agreed to pool as much as $50 million to pay for his safety.

“He enabled the cartel. He protected the cartel. He was the cartel,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Saritha Komatireddy instructed the choose Wednesday.

García Luna enabled a corrupt system that allowed violent cartels to thrive and distribute medication that killed multitudes of individuals, she added.

“It might not have been the defendant pulling the set off, however he has blood on his palms,” Komatireddy stated.

Prosecutors additionally stated García Luna plotted to undo final 12 months’s verdict by searching for to bribe or corruptly persuade a number of inmates on the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn to help false allegations that two authorities witnesses communicated by way of contraband mobile telephones prematurely of the trial.

García Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, stated the protection intends to enchantment the sentence. He stated his shopper is somebody who “has served his nation” and has now misplaced his cash, his popularity in addition to insurance policies he championed in Mexico.

“He has misplaced near the whole lot. All that is still is his fantastic household,” Mr. Castro stated.

In Mexico, newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case Tuesday, saying: “The massive problem right here is how somebody who was awarded by United States businesses, who ex-President Calderón stated fantastic issues about his safety secretary, right this moment is prisoner in america as a result of it’s proven that he was tied to drug trafficking.”

García Luna’s arrest and conviction turned a political cudgel that the governing celebration of Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, used on this 12 months’s Mexican presidential election towards Calderón’s weakened Nationwide Motion Get together. They sought to color García Luna because the poster baby of corruption and Calderón as the person chargeable for hovering violence from the drug conflict.

López Obrador and now Sheinbaum turned away from direct confrontation with the cartels, as an alternative specializing in what they take into account root causes of violence, resembling poverty. However the brand new technique has didn’t considerably decrease the extent of violence.

López Obrador had a really totally different response in 2020 when U.S. authorities arrested former Mexican Protection Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos for allegedly colluding with a drug cartel. In that case, López Obrador accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating proof towards Cienfuegos and protested till the U.S. authorities dropped the costs. He was returned to Mexico, the place he was promptly cleared and launched.