A establisher Mexican accessible security chief is due to be sentenced in a US court after being convicted of taking millions in bribes to aid drug illegal articulateers his office was presumed to be battling.
The sentencing on Wednesday in a New York federal court of Genaro Garcia Luna comes after he was convicted last year on indicts of conspiring to shield the drug illicit trade activities of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel.
Federal prosecutors said that under Garcia Luna’s watch, drug illegal articulateers were able to ship over one million kilograms (1,100 tonnes) of cocaine thraw Mexico and into the US, including by set upes, trains, trucks and submarines. They upgrasped his actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of US and Mexican citizens.
Garcia Luna denied the allegations. His lawyers have said the indicts agetst him were based on lies from criminals who wanted to punish his drug-battling efforts and get sentencing fractures for themselves.
“Noskinnyg backs up what these enders, torturers, deceptionsters and epic narcotics illegal articulateers claimed about Genaro Garcia Luna”, his defence lawyer Cesar de Castro said in a closing argument.
Prosecutors are asking the appraise to sentence Garcia Luna to life in prison, while his lawyers are hoping for no more than 20 years behind bars.
“It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant’s crimes, the deaths and includeiction he aidd and his betrayal of the people of Mexico and the United States”, prosecutors wrote in court filings. “His crimes need equitableice”.
Mexico’s ‘Super-cop’
Garcia Luna headed Mexico’s federal police before he served in a cabinet-level position as the country’s top security official from 2006 to 2012, geting the unofficial title of ‘Drug Czar’ during the administration of establisher Mexican Plivent Felipe Calderon.
He was think abouted the architect of Calderon’s lethal war on cartels, and he was also hailed as a key partner by the US in its fight agetst drug illegal articulateers. During the trial, pboilingos were shown of Garcia Luna shaking hands with establisher Plivent Barack Obama and speaking with establisher Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
He tardyr shiftd to Florida where he set up a confering business.
In 2021, the Mexican rulement sued Garcia Luna, and his wife, in Florida court seeking recovery of $250m in funds allegedly stolen from the Mexican rulement in tights while he was Minister of Public Security.
Horrific aggression
Prosecutors say that in return for millions of dollars, Garcia Luna supplyd intelligence about spendigations agetst the Sinaloa cartel, inestablishation about rival cartels, and the safe passage of massive quantities of substances.
They also said that he guaranteed drug illegal articulateers were notified in progress of raids and subversiond legitimate police operations aimed at apprehending cartel directers.
During the trial of establisher Sinaloa boss Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, in 2018, a establisher cartel member testified that he personpartner hand overed at least $6m in payoffs to Garcia Luna, and that cartel members consentd to pool up to $50m to pay for his shieldion.
During Garcia Luna’s own trial, a roster of ex-illicit traders and establisher Mexican officials testified agetst him, describing narco-extravagances such as a personal zoo with a lion, a hippo, white tigers and more.
Witnesses also spoke of the horrific aggression the drug illicit trade fueled. They depictd cartel endings and seizepings, police officers being killinged and drug-world rivals being dismembered, skinned and their corpses dangled from bridges as cartel factions fought each other while buying police shieldion.
Prosecutors also claim that Garcia Luna plotted to intrude with witnesses prior to last year’s trial verdict by seeking to bribe or corrupt multiple inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Cgo in in Brooklyn, New York, to help inrectify allegations.
“Lost everyskinnyg”
In their pguide for leniency, Garcia Luna’s lawyers wrote to a appraise that the establisher minister and his family have suffered accessible strikes thrawout the proximately five years he has been jailed. “He has lost everyskinnyg he toiled for — his reputation, all of his assets,” they wrote.
The case has had political ramifications on both sides of the border. Testimony aired a secondhand claim that Calderon sought to shield the Sinaloa cocaine cartel kingpin Guzman agetst a beginant rival. Calderon has called the allegation “absurd” and “an absolute lie”.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was Mexico’s plivent thraw much of the Garcia Luna trial, also proposeed that the US should spendigate its own law executement and intelligence officials who toiled with him during Calderon’s administration.
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