Source: Dallas News
Author: Kevin Krause
December 10, 2019
Former top Mexican official accused of taking millions from violent cartel captured in Dallas
Genaro Garcia Luna is wanted in New York for taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for allowing it to operate with impunity
A former top law enforcement official with the Mexican government who is accused of taking millions in bribes from a violent drug cartel in that country will be in federal court in Dallas this afternoon for a hearing on his case, federal court records say.
Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, was arrested in Dallas on Monday, according to court records. He is wanted by the feds in New York where he was indicted on Dec. 4 on four counts, including being involved in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy.
A court filing says Garcia Luna took millions in bribes from the notorious Sinaloa Cartel to allow it to “operate with impunity in Mexico.” Garcia Luna moved from Mexico to Miami in 2012 and obtained lawful resident status, according to the filing, made in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn.
Garcia Luna, a Florida resident, also is accused of lying about his past on a 2018 application for naturalization, for which he is charged with making false statements.
Some of the allegations against Garcia Luna came out in testimony during last year’s federal trial in New York of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo Guzmán.
Guzmán, Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, was convicted in February on all 10 counts against him related to his leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s largest and most violent drug trafficking organizations. His three-month trial featured grisly tales of murder, political bribes, jewel-encrusted guns and his famous prison escape through a tunnel. He was sentenced to life in prison in July.
It is unclear why Garcia Luna was in Dallas at the time of his arrest.
Garcia Luna served as Secretary of Public Security in Mexico from 2006 to 2012, the New York court filing says.
“To this day, he profits from his crimes, and he has lied about them to the United States in an attempt to secure U.S. citizenship,” prosecutors said in the filing.
The indictment says the conspiracy began in 2001 when Luna was head of Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency. When he became public security secretary, Luna controlled Mexico’s Federal Police Force.
One of the Sinaloa Cartel’s tactics has been to pay off corrupt high-ranking Mexican officials to allow it to continue its successful drug trafficking enterprise despite various stated crackdowns on cartels by the Mexican government.
“Because of the defendant’s corrupt assistance, the Sinaloa Cartel conducted its criminal activity in Mexico without significant interference from Mexican law enforcement and imported multi-ton quantities of cocaine and other drugs into the United States,” the court filing says.
In exchange for the bribes, the Sinaloa Cartel “obtained safe passage for its drug shipments” as well as inside information about investigations into the cartel and intelligence about rival cartels, federal officials in New York said in a news release.
