Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former secretary of public security, was sentenced to more than 38 years in a U.S. prison on Wednesday for accepting substantial bribes to assist drug traffickers. García Luna, who was once hailed as the architect of Mexico’s war on drug cartels, was found guilty by a New York jury in 2023 of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to protect the very drug cartels he was supposedly fighting against. He is the highest-ranking Mexican government official to be convicted in the United States.
During his sentencing hearing before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to assert his innocence, claiming that the case against him was based on false accusations made by criminals and the Mexican government. “I have a firm respect for the law,” he stated in Spanish. “I have not committed these crimes.”
García Luna, 56, headed Mexico’s Federal Investigative Agency before serving in a cabinet-level position as the top security official from 2006 to 2012 under then-President Felipe Calderón. At the time, García Luna was considered an ally by the U.S. in its efforts against drug trafficking.
However, U.S. prosecutors argued that García Luna, in exchange for millions of dollars, provided intelligence about investigations targeting the cartel, information about rival gangs, and facilitated the safe passage of substantial quantities of drugs.
Following the sentencing, Calderón, via the social platform X, expressed respect for the court’s decision but asserted that he never had “verifiable evidence” of García Luna’s criminal activities. Calderón stated that confronting the cartels “was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. But I would do it again, because it is the right thing to do.”
Earlier outside the courthouse, a group of approximately 15 protesters celebrated the verdict. Some held a banner that read, in Spanish, “Calderon did know,” while others displayed signs condemning his political party.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, while García Luna’s lawyers argued for a maximum sentence of 20 years.
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan stated that he was not swayed by past accolades that García Luna received for his work in the war on drugs. “That was your cover,” Cogan remarked before imposing the sentence. “You are guilty of these crimes, sir. You can’t parade these words and say, ‘I’m police officer of the year.’”
In addition to the 38-year and four-month sentence, the judge levied a $2 million fine.
During the trial, photographs were presented showing García Luna shaking hands with former President Barack Obama and interacting with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John McCain.
However, prosecutors maintained that García Luna secretly participated in a drug trafficking conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of countless American and Mexican citizens. They alleged that he ensured drug traffickers were notified in advance of raids and sabotaged legitimate police operations aimed at capturing cartel leaders.
Prosecutors asserted that drug traffickers were able to transport over 1 million kilograms of cocaine through Mexico and into the United States using planes, trains, trucks, and submarines during García Luna’s tenure in office.
During former Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s trial in the same court in 2018, a former cartel member testified that he personally delivered at least $6 million in payoffs to García Luna and that cartel members agreed to pool up to $50 million to pay for his protection.
“He enabled the cartel. He protected the cartel. He was the cartel,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy told the judge Wednesday.
Komatireddy further stated that García Luna facilitated a corrupt system that allowed drug cartels to flourish and distribute drugs that caused the deaths of countless individuals. “It may not have been the defendant pulling the trigger, but he has blood on his hands,” she said.
Prosecutors also alleged that García Luna plotted to overturn last year’s verdict by attempting to bribe or corruptly convince multiple inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to support false allegations that two government witnesses communicated via contraband cellular phones prior to the trial.
García Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, said the defense plans to appeal the sentence. He described his client as someone who “has served his country” and has now lost his money, his reputation, and the policies he championed in Mexico. “He has lost close to everything. All that remains is his wonderful family,” de Castro stated.
In Mexico, newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum briefly commented on the case on Tuesday, saying: “The big issue here is how someone who was awarded by United States agencies, who ex-President Calderón said wonderful things about his security secretary, today is prisoner in the United States because it’s shown that he was tied to drug trafficking.”
García Luna’s arrest and conviction became a political weapon used by the governing party of Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in this year’s Mexican presidential election against Calderón’s weakened National Action Party. They aimed to portray García Luna as the embodiment of corruption and Calderón as the individual responsible for the surge in violence resulting from the drug war.
López Obrador and now Sheinbaum have shifted away from direct confrontations with the cartels, instead focusing on what they consider the root causes of violence, such as poverty. However, the new strategy has failed to significantly reduce the level of violence.
López Obrador had a vastly different response in 2020 when U.S. authorities arrested former Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos for allegedly colluding with a drug cartel. In that case, López Obrador accused the Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating evidence against Cienfuegos and protested until the U.S. government dropped the charges. Cienfuegos was returned to Mexico, where he was promptly cleared and released.