he is found guilty of participation in a criminal enterprise and conspiracy to distribute cocaine

( Spanish) — Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Security between 2006 and 2012, was found guilty of all five charges he faced in a New York trial, including several charges of participation in an ongoing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to obtain, import and distribute thousands of kilograms of cocaine in the United States, in addition to allegedly making false statements to US immigration officials.

The sentence against García Luna will be known on June 27, as determined by the judge of the Eastern District Court of New York. The former official faces a penalty ranging from 20 years in prison to life imprisonment, according to what the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday.

“García Luna, once at the pinnacle of security in Mexico, will now live out the rest of his days having revealed himself as a traitor to his country and to the honest law enforcement officers who risked their lives to dismantle the cartels. of drugs,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “It is inconceivable that the defendant betrayed his duty as Secretary of Public Safety by greedily accepting millions of dollars in bribes stained by the blood of cartel wars,” he added.

The jury of the Court of the Eastern District of New York announced the verdict after 15 days of hearings and having heard the testimony of 27 witnesses.

García Luna had pleaded not guilty to all charges and can appeal this ruling.

What were they accusing Genaro García Luna of?

García Luna, who for a decade served as head of Mexico’s now dissolved Federal Investigation Agency, equivalent to the FBI, was arrested on December 9, 2019 in Dallas and charged with drug trafficking and accepting million-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, led at that time by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The prosecution argued that, in exchange for money, García Luna allowed the Sinaloa Cartel to operate with impunity in Mexico and helped traffickers transport drugs safely and without the intervention of law enforcement to the United States, and that it even carried out attacks against rival cartels.

The trial against former secretary García Luna in New York began last January and lasted approximately six weeks. On January 19, the jury that ended up deciding the future of the accused was constituted.

From there, the initial arguments of the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense were made, before giving way to the witnesses whose statements were heard for several weeks.

In the final stretch of the trial, it was learned that García Luna would not testify in his defense.

The trial was held in the Eastern District of New York court and was presided over by federal judge Brian Cogan, the same court and judge who oversaw the case against Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

During Guzmán’s trial, García Luna’s name was mentioned when some testified that they gave suitcases full of money to the former head of the Mexican Police.

What is the sentence that García Luna could receive?

December 10, 2019one day after García Luna’s arrest in Texas, the United States Department of Justice indicated that, if convicted of drug conspiracy, García Luna would face “a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment”.

Besides, on July 30, 2020the Department of Justice reported that, if convicted for participation in a continuing criminal enterprise, García Luna would face “a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison.”

Samuel González, a lawyer and expert in Public Safety and Organized Crime, explained to that the sentence will depend on how he is declared for each of the charges and that the result can be a combination.

“For example, they can give him 10 years for lying, 20 for each of the four remaining charges. Or like El Chapo, a life sentence plus 30 years,” he says.

The lawyer Vance Owen, for his part, does not consider that they can give García Luna a life sentence.

“In these cases, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are used as a sentencing bible and the hands of the judge are tied to those ranges,” he explained.

With information from Yilber Vega and María Santana, from en Español.