A former Mexican security minister has been arrested in the US, charged with taking bribes from a drugs cartel. Genaro García Luna is accused of allowing the Sinaloa cartel of “El Chapo” Guzman to operate in Mexico in exchange for millions of dollars. Prosecutors say Mr. García Luna gave the cartel safe passage for drug shipments and disclosure to sensitive information. They say that on two occasions cartel members delivered up to $5m (£3.7m) in two briefcases to him in person.
Mr. García Luna, 52, served as public security chief in the administration of President Felipe Calderon between 2006 and 2012. His arrest in Texas is a major development in Mexican and world politics and in the United States. Mr. Garcia has not granted any diplomatic immunity and is taken into custody.
Mr. García Luna was taken into custody in Dallas, Texas, on Monday. Court documents unsealed on Tuesday in Brooklyn showed he had been charged with cocaine trafficking conspiracy and making false statements. He was also accused of lying about his criminal past when he applied for US naturalization in 2018. Considerable matters is this that Mr. Garcia came to the United States on what grounds and on what grounds he had applied for naturalization, while he is foreign diplomat, which also concerned the U. S. Government and his ties with cartels. Considerable matter is that in the past U. S. had Italian gangs and now U. S. has Mexican gangs working inside its borders.
During that trial, ex-cartel member Jesus “Rey” Zambada alleged that he had personally delivered two suitcases containing millions of dollars in bribes to Mr García Luna at a restaurant.
Mr García Luna denied those allegations at the time, calling them “lies, defamation and perjury”. US prosecutors allege that the former minister used his position to protect the Sinaloa Cartel’s trafficking operations from 2001 to 2012, enabling it to operate “with impunity” in Mexico.
If found guilty, he faces between 10 years to life in prison.
Most illicit drugs are smuggled from Mexico into the United States through more than three hundred ports of entry, or legal crossings, which are controlled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Traffickers hide or disguise drugs in passenger vehicles, tractor trailers, and, to a lesser extent, buses and cargo trains and in addition to these ways, these drug traffickers also use illegal immigrants and implant these drugs in their private parts including rectum or vagina.
Mexican authorities have been waging a war against drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) for more than a decade, but with limited success. Thousands of Mexicans, including politicians, students, and journalists, continue to die in the conflict every year. The country has seen over three hundred thousand homicides since anti-drug campaigns began in 2006. In 2018, homicides, many linked to drug cartels, hit a new high of almost thirty-six thousand. This trend continued in 2019, with about ninety murders daily.
Successive U.S. administrations have partnered closely with Mexico in this fight, providing billions of dollars for Mexico to modernize its security forces, reform its judicial system, and make other investments. Washington has also sought to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States by bolstering security on its southern border, although a debate has flared over the utility of expanding the physical barriers there even now U. S. is building a border wall to stop the illegal entry into the United States and to put a stop on drug traffickings.
For some Mexicans, the news of Mr. García Luna’s arrest was almost unimaginable. For others, it was a proof of enduring suspicions that he had been in bed with criminals all along. Still others interpreted it as a sweeping — and scalding — referendum on the two administrations in which he served. Then there were those who found confirmation that the whole apparatus of Mexico’s government was once and forever corrupt.