Mexico's Former Top Cop Found Guilty on All Charges...Garcia Luna verdict report in VICE
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BROOKLYN - The former top law enforcement official in Mexico has been convicted by a jury in Brooklyn on charges that he took tens of millions of dollars worth of bribes from El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel, ending a high-stakes trial that lasted nearly a month and involved the testimony of multiple former cartel bosses.
The 54-year-old Genaro García Luna, who served as Mexico’s secretary of public security from 2006 to 2012 under President Felipe Calderón, was found guilty on all five counts of the indictment against him. He was accused of secretly working on behalf of the cartel, conspiring to smuggle cocaine to the U.S., and lying on his application for U.S. citizenship.
The jury reached a unanimous verdict after two and a half days of deliberations. García Luna now faces a potential sentence of life in prison with no chance for parole. He reacted stoically as the jury’s foreperson read out the verdict, betraying no emotion. His wife and adult son and daughter were in the courtroom, holding hands with their heads bowed.
García Luna’s trial lasted nearly a month, with federal prosecutors relying on the testimony of top cartel bosses who cooperated in exchange for reduced sentences in their own cases. The proceedings were held in the same courtroom and before the same judge as the trial of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was convicted in 2019 and is now serving a life sentence.
García Luna’s sentencing is now scheduled for June 27. He will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars in the U.S. prison system.
Judge Brian Cogan read the verdict aloud in the courtroom and then thanked the jurors for their service. “The way you observed all the witnesses and testimony… you did a remarkable job,” Cogan said. “When you determine the fate of someone at a trial, that’s probably the most important thing you’ll do for a long while.”
Similar to the El Chapo trial, the jurors were kept anonymous and partially sequestered for security reasons. One of the jurors, a young man who looked to be in his late 20s, appeared to weep as the judge read the verdict and thanked the jury.
There was an awkward moment prior to the reading of the verdict where the jurors filed into the courtroom and handed the judge a slip of paper with their decision. Cogan read the note silently, then called the prosecution and defense up to his bench for a sidebar conversation out of earshot from the courtroom audience. He then addressed the jury foreperson, saying they had forgotten to check the box for “Guilty” or “Not Guilty” on the verdict sheet. The jurors filed out of the courtroom and returned a few moments later having checked all the boxes.
García Luna wore a dark navy-colored suit and had gestured toward his family with a pained expression when he was led into the courtroom, as if to send them a hug prior to the verdict being handed down.
Two rows of the courtroom audience was full of agents from the DEA and other agencies involved in the case, and they too remained silent and impassive as the years-long prosecution came to a close.
The conviction caps a stunning fall from grace from García Luna, who was once a trusted ally of U.S. law enforcement agencies in Mexico. García Luna’s defense attorneys showed the jury photos of him meeting with former President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, along with the heads of the DEA and other agencies during the Calderón era. Cartel violence in Mexico escalated dramatically under Calderón, with García Luna serving as the face of the government’s militarized campaign to combat crime.
But according to federal prosecutors and their witnesses, García Luna was playing both sides of the drug war—taking massive bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for leaking information from U.S. authorities and protecting the cartel’s business in Mexico. Witnesses—including the brother of current Sinaloa Cartel boss Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada—testified that García Luna was a key asset that enabled Mexico’s most powerful cartel to operate with impunity.
El Mayo’s brother, Jesús Reynaldo Zambada García aka El Rey, claimed he personally delivered $5 million worth of bribes to García Luna in two separate meetings at a restaurant in Mexico City while García Luna held his cabinet-level position under Calderón. At the time, García Luna was in charge of Mexico’s federal police force and prisons, along with the country’s highway police and security at seaports and airports.
"You could work a lot,” El Rey said, describing why the cartel bribed García Luna. “There was a lot of security, there was support given with the fighting and the hitmen, it was very important."
García Luna began his career within the Mexican equivalent of the CIA, eventually climbing the ranks to serve as the director of a federal police force similar to the FBI in 2001 under ex-president Vicente Fox. Witnesses testified that when García Luna took the job under Fox, he also joined the Sinaloa Cartel’s payroll, receiving monthly payments that started at $1.5 million and grew over time as he continued to gain power and influence.
Prosecutors described a vast web of corruption that involved nearly every level of Mexican law enforcement with García Luna at the top. According to trial testimony, cartel members received police credentials, uniforms, and equipment, and cartel bosses were allowed to choose which police commanders would supervise areas they controlled. Witnesses said federal police officers sometimes served as bodyguards for cartel leaders and even helped unload shipments of cocaine that transited through Mexico City’s airport.
Sergio Villarreal Barragán—better known as El Grande because of his enormous build—served as top lieutenant in the Beltrán Leyva Organization, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. Grande testified that he was present during meetings where García Luna took cash bribes of over $1 million. Grande, who was extradited to the U.S. in 2012 and was released in 2019 after striking a plea deal with federal prosecutors, said the bribes were money well spent for the cartel.
“It was the best investment they had of their money,” El Grande said. “We had absolutely no problems.”
While the trial began with expectations that it would deliver bombshells about corruption by Mexican presidents, the testimony largely failed to deliver. One witness described hearing second-hand information about Calderón and García Luna giving orders to support El Chapo’s faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, but the allegation lacked any proof or corroboration.“What was said about me is an absolute lie,” Calderón tweeted on Feb. 7. “I never negotiated or agreed with criminals."
El Mayo’s brother was asked on cross-examination whether he’d ever told U.S. investigators about an alleged $7 million payment to the campaign of Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but he denied ever making the statement. López Obrador has since threatened legal action in Mexico against García Luna’s lawyer.
"I do not accept that my honesty is questioned," López Obrador said on Feb. 16.
García Luna’s defense argued throughout the trial that prosecutors had no hard evidence linking their client to bribes—just the testimony of the cartel cooperators. Prosecutors were unable to show the jury any recordings, text messages, emails or other records to prove the bribe payments ever actually occurred, and there was little evidence to show that García Luna was living beyond his means as a high-ranking public servant in Mexico.
“The government's lack of evidence is shocking,” lead defense attorney Cesar de Castro told the jury during his closing statement. “They're asking you to condemn a man solely on the words of some of the most notorious and ruthless criminals this world has ever seen.”
García Luna still has a chance to appeal his conviction. Throughout the trial, his defense argued that he “withdrew” from the cartel conspiracy when he left Mexico’s government in 2012 and that the statute of limitations expired before he was arrested and charged in 2019.
Prosecutor Saritha Somatireddy spoke about why it took so long for the government to bring charges in her closing argument.
“This case came together over a decade; witness by witness, by witness,” she said. “It took a while to put the pieces together.”
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