U.S. Jury Convicts Mexico’s Former Top Cop of Drug Trafficking
Wall Street JournalFeb 22, 2023
After a four-week trial, Mexico's ex-security minister Genaro García Luna on Tuesday was convicted by a New York jury of drug trafficking and taking millions of dollars from Mexico's biggest crime group, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's Sinaloa drug cartel.
García Luna served as the public security minister under Felipe Calderón's presidency from 2006 to 2012, which put him in charge of fighting Mexican drug cartels. He was arrested in 2019 in Texas and had pleaded not guilty.
This verdict shows just how high up the corruption went under Felipe Calderón's presidency, as it's scandalous that a US jury could convict Mexico’s former drug czar on charges of aiding the Sinaloa drug cartel. US officials have for years complained about the difficulty of knowing who to trust and share information with inside the Mexican government. Now, that distrust has been proven justified.
While US attorneys pat themselves on the back for this conviction, what should be investigated more is what US officials knew about this corruption throughout the years. García Luna worked closely with the US government dating back to the Bill Clinton presidency, during which his corruption was carelessly — or more cynically, deliberately — unnoticed. This shouldn't just be a Mexican story but a conviction of US negligence, too.