Former Mexican drug czar deserves life in prison for bribery, US says

Genaro Garcia Luna, who for several years led Mexico’s fight against the country’s violent drug trade, should spend the rest of his life in prison after accepting bribes to protect the cartels he was supposed to combat, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday.

García Luna faces sentencing on Oct. 9 in Brooklyn federal court before U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, following his February 2023 conviction for participating in a criminal drug enterprise, participating in various conspiracies and making false statements.

Prosecutors said Garcia Luna, Mexico’s public security secretary from 2006 to 2012, accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, once led by Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo.

In return, he became an “ally and essential member” of the cartel, protecting members from arrest and providing them with assistance as they shipped more than 1 million kilograms (2.2 million pounds) of cocaine through Mexico to the United States, prosecutors said.

“It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant’s crimes, the deaths and addiction he facilitated, and his betrayal of the people of Mexico and the United States,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a letter to the judge. “His crimes demand justice.”

Garcia Luna, 56, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. His attorney, Cesar de Castro, plans to file his own sentencing recommendation.

“Nothing in the government’s arguments surprises me,” de Castro said in an email. “The only surprise was that it submitted the letter earlier than required.”

Prosecutors said Garcia Luna essentially lived separate lives, working with U.S. intelligence and drug enforcement agencies while secretly on the Sinaloa cartel’s payroll.

According to prosecutors, his assistance to the cartel included providing information about government investigations and rival cartels.

“The defendant committed these heinous acts while openly presenting himself as an enemy of drug cartels and an ally of the United States,” Peace wrote.

Guzman is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security Colorado prison after being convicted in 2019 on drug charges.

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