Mexico’s former top security official has been convicted in the US of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel once run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Prosecutors told a New York court that in return Genaro Garcia Luna provided safe passage for cocaine shipments, protection from arrest and information on law enforcement operations against the cartel.
Garcia Luna, 54, had pleaded not guilty to taking part in a continuing criminal enterprise but faces a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of life behind bars.
A jury in Brooklyn, New York, convicted Garcia Luna on five counts, including conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Garcia Luna is one of the most senior Mexican officials ever convicted of ties to a drug cartel. Between 2001 and 2005 he ran Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency and was public security minister in 2006.
Prosecutor Saritha Komatireddy told the jury that Garcia Luna had been vital to the cartel’s shipping of cocaine.
“These leaders paid the defendant bribes for protection - and they got what they paid for,” Ms Komatireddy said in her closing argument on 15 February referring to Guzman and two other top-ranking Sinaloa cartel figures.
